{"id":863772,"date":"2026-06-20T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=863772"},"modified":"2026-06-19T15:29:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T13:29:35","slug":"situation-critical-for-south-africa-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/863772\/situation-critical-for-south-africa-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Situation critical for South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa\u2019s latest General Household Survey (GHS) revealed that more than half of the population reported water interruptions in 2025, with outages lasting for days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Stats SA acting Deputy Director-General of Population and Social Statistics, Solly Molayi, the number of people who have access to water in the country is sitting at about 76%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, despite increased access to water, the number of extended interruptions has increased in proportion since 2012, where it was 24%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, 37.6% of households experience water interruptions lasting at least 2 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Molayi noted that South Africa\u2019s eight metropolitan municipalities have experienced the most interruptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that in 2015, 7% of households in the metros experienced water interruptions, whereas now, the number has risen to over 30%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThose who are in the metros, like the City of Johannesburg, the City of Cape Town, [are most likely to] experience water interruptions that last more than two days,\u201d said Molayi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The effectiveness of municipal water supply services is determined by the extent to which households that received water from the municipality reported experiencing interruptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Specifically, the survey focused on interruptions lasting more than two consecutive days or totalling more than 15 days over the past 12 months. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Households were asked to indicate how often these water interruptions occurred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Statistics from the GHS revealed that 56.8% of households in South Africa experienced water interruptions in 2025.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weekly water interruptions were most prevalent in Mpumalanga (36.0%), followed by Limpopo (25.9%) and KwaZulu-Natal (24.2%).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By contrast, the Western Cape reported the fewest interruptions at just 0.3%.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only 2.8% of households experienced water interruptions on a single occasion over the past 12 months. About 43.2% of households reported no water interruptions during the same period. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Households without water interruptions were most common in the Western Cape (74.8%), followed by the Free State (47.0%). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In several other provinces, however, a significantly lower percentage of households reported an uninterrupted water supply.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, only 28.6% of households in the North West, 29.4% in the Northern Cape, 30.0% in Mpumalanga, and 30.6% in the Eastern Cape reported having a reliable water supply over the past year.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These disparities among provinces underscore significant differences in the reliability of household water access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Percentage (%) distribution of households that reported water interruptions that lasted at least 2 days or totalling more than 15 days in 12 months by province, 2025<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Source: Stats SA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Water lost before getting anywhere<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Approximately 47.4% of all municipal water is lost before it reaches consumers or generates revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Participants at a recent Investec\u2013Proparco industry dialogue cautioned that the opportunity for effective intervention is rapidly diminishing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melanie Humphries, head of Investec Sustainable Solutions, stated that water security has become critical to South Africa’s economic future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInfrastructure underpins productivity, investment and inclusion. When it works, economies grow. When it fails, it becomes a binding constraint,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWater is the crisis that has been building quietly in the background. Too often, it only becomes urgent once systems are already under strain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She mentioned that the current challenge is to shift decisively from diagnosing the problem to implementing solutions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this year, the Department of Water and Sanitation revealed the scale of the issue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In February, Director-General Dr Sean Phillips confirmed that South Africa would need to invest approximately R400 billion to address the maintenance backlog in the country’s poorest-performing municipalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve estimated that the backlog for water services infrastructure, not only in terms of fixing what\u2019s broken, but also routine or preventative maintenance, is about R400 billion,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the figure is concerning, Phillips emphasised that the crisis is not caused by a lack of water at the national level, but rather by failures in local management and distribution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than half of South Africa experienced water interruptions in 2025, with more than a third sitting with disrupted flow for more than two days at a time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":863807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[10576],"class_list":["post-863772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-general-household-survey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=863772"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":864096,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863772\/revisions\/864096"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/863807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}