None of Mangaung’s 13 sewage works is functioning properly, one discharges about 25 million litres of raw sewage a day, and the city loses nearly half the water it buys. Ahead of the local elections, the Free State capital is a case study in municipal failure.
At the Sterkwater wastewater treatment works in Bloemfontein, a municipal employee summed up the situation in four words to a GroundUp reporter: nothing is working here. The plant’s three Archimedes screw pumps, which lift incoming sewage into the works, are missing. As a result, sewage from Rocklands, Turflaagte and Sonskyn never reaches the plant. Instead, about 25 million litres of raw sewage a day reportedly spill into a roadside ditch.
Sterkwater is not an exception. It is the starkest example of a system that, according to the Department of Water and Sanitation’s own monitoring data, has collapsed across the whole of Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality.
Thirteen works, none working
None of Mangaung’s 13 wastewater treatment works is functioning properly. Seven of them score zero percent compliance on all four of the main effluent quality indicators. Only Bloemdustria, a small works treating about 2,000 kilolitres a day, meets microbiological standards, and even it scores zero on the other three measures. The Bloemspruit and North-Eastern works, which together discharge around 40 million litres of effluent a day, are rated as failing in the 2025 Green Drop report, with effluent described as barely better than raw sewage.
The consequences flow downstream. Sewage from Sterkwater seeps through a field and a canal into the Renosterspruit, which farmers use to irrigate crops. Effluent from the Bloemspruit and North-Eastern works also reaches the Renosterspruit, which flows into the Modder River and eventually the Vaal. In Botshabelo and Thaba Nchu, untreated sewage flows towards Maselspoort Dam, which supplies drinking water to Bloemfontein itself.
Losing half the water it buys
The water supply side is in similar trouble. Mangaung buys bulk water from Vaal Central Water. In 2024/25 it bought 85 million kilolitres but sold only 44 million, losing 41 million kilolitres to leaks, unmetered use and billing failures, at a cost of about R495 million. The city needs about 255 megalitres a day but faces a supply shortfall of around 68 megalitres a day, while losing about 112 megalitres a day. Planning documents warn that without urgent intervention, the shortfall could reach 154 megalitres a day by 2040.
The municipality says losses fell in 2025/26, though the figures are unaudited. Its spokesperson, Nicolette Maysiels, blamed slow progress on insufficient funding for water loss reduction, and the municipality says it has money for only a small fraction of its 18 water conservation strategies.
Meanwhile, residents live with the results. In an informal settlement in Thaba Nchu, about 300 households have no municipal water supply and depend on a neighbour’s standpipe that is often dry, or a borehole tap at an old barracks. One resident described the difficulty of getting children to school without water.
Money returned, money wasted
The financial picture explains much of the failure. Mangaung returned R141 million in unspent conditional grants to Treasury, including R49 million meant for informal settlements, while R192 million went unspent in 2024/25. Unauthorised expenditure totals about R5 billion over four years, and irregular expenditure stood at R3.4 billion at the start of 2024/25. According to the Auditor-General, no investigations or disciplinary steps were taken in 2024/25.
The municipality has been under administration since 2019 and national administration since 2022. In late July 2026, the Special Investigating Unit was authorised to investigate maladministration and unlawful spending. Mangaung was also among the metros that had transfers withheld by National Treasury in July for failing to pay creditors.
The election question
GroundUp published its report as part of its coverage of the 2026 local government elections, and it is hard to read it without asking what voters will make of it. Mangaung’s problems are not caused by drought or lack of resources. Grants are being returned unspent while sewage pumps go missing. Water is bought and lost before it can be billed. Administrations come and go while treatment works decay.
The new national tools now available, from Treasury’s direct payments to creditors to the Water Services Amendment Bill’s licensing regime and the Special Investigating Unit probe, offer some hope that consequences will finally follow. But the people of Bloemfontein, Botshabelo and Thaba Nchu need more than investigations. They need working pumps, functioning treatment works and taps that run. And the farmers and towns downstream on the Modder and the Vaal need Mangaung to stop sending its sewage their way.
References
GroundUp: Elections 2026, blunders in Mangaung are poisoning Free State water (1 September 2026): https://groundup.news/article/mangaung-misrule-poisons-free-state-waters/
PMG: Green, Blue and No Drop Reports 2025, ministry briefing: https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/43264/
BusinessDay: Godongwana bypasses non-compliant municipalities with direct payments to creditors (12 July 2026): https://www.businessday.co.za/news/2026-07-12-godongwana-bypasses-non-compliant-municipalities-with-direct-payments-to-creditors/
Parliament of South Africa: Mopani communities back Water Services Bill (29 August 2026): https://www.parliament.gov.za/press-releases/media-statement-mopani-communities-back-water-services-bill-demand-stronger-accountability-and-capacity