The ‘real’ cause of South Africa’s water crisis – according to Rand Water
In addressing the ongoing challenges in resolving water shortages across South Africa and Gauteng, Rand Water CEO Sipho Mosai pointed to municipal mismanagement and capacity as the root cause of the water shortage crisis.
Gauteng’s main metros are currently facing major water supply issues, with households going without water for days and, in some cases, weeks.
During a media briefing on Wednesday (5 July 2023), Mosai dispelled that Rand Water has a water supply issue. “Rand Water doesn’t have a problem,” he said.
He explained that Rand Water is a bulk supplier of water. It buys water from the Department of Water and Sanitation from the Vaal Dam integrated system. It then purifies it before pumping it to various water reservoirs across four provinces – including all the municipalities in Gauteng.
He added that Rand Water’s customers (the municipalities) are then responsible for distributing the water to homes on the ground.
“There is a disturbing trend that when a water outage occurs, people turn to Rand Water and not the municipality,” said Mosai.
He added that when load shedding is expected to impact bulk supply, Rand Water communicates this to the relevant municipality, and it is then their responsibility to notify residents of the affected areas if reserves are low at a municipal level.
Mosai also reminded residents that although load shedding has reduced, power trips still occur, and due to the processes needed to pump water across the country, the full recovery of the system may take five days or longer to restore supply fully.
The main culprits of the water shortages
Pointing to the main factors contributing to the water shortages experienced by parts of South Africa and Gauteng, Mosai noted that residents are affected by power trips at Rand Water because municipalities don’t have enough storage capacity.
“Most municipalities have been frank about this; they rely on our bulk reservoirs because most of them face challenges with their own reservoirs and their ability to store and boost water supply,” he said, adding that “it takes longer to get water from us and get it all the way to households”.
Mosai clarified that there is no shortage of water or supply issues on Rand Water’s side.
He noted that Rand Water supplies an average of 4,642 megalitres daily, covering 5,036 megalitres per day at peak demand.
Rand Water estimates that this amount of bulk water supplied to municipalities services close to 18 million residents, “so if you do the maths, we are supplying more than enough water,” said Mosai.
“It is, therefore, simply not right to say that we have a demand and supply problem,” he added.
Instead, Mosai said the main issue is the lack of municipal action to address their deteriorating water infrastructure.
He noted that on average – across the 18 municipalities Rand Water supplies – 46% of the water supplied is non-revenue water, meaning 46% is lost due to poor infrastructure, i.e. leaks etc.
He added that in some municipalities, this is as much as 60%, while he confirmed that only 4% of the water supplied by Rand Water through its infrastructure is non-revenue water.
“The elephant in the room is this non-revenue water that no one seems to be addressing. It has to be attended to,” he said.
“It cannot be that, when there are water issues, Rand Water must just pump more water into the system. It won’t work and is unsustainable; more water will just be lost. Infrastructure maintenance must be addressed,” said Mosai.
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