{"id":879880,"date":"2026-10-18T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=879880"},"modified":"2026-10-16T15:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T13:56:10","slug":"r26-billion-a-year-down-the-drain-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/879880\/r26-billion-a-year-down-the-drain-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"R26 billion a year down the drain in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa is facing a severe municipal water crisis where 47.3% of treated drinking water is lost or unbilled as Non-Revenue Water (NRW).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is driven primarily by ageing municipal infrastructure, pipe leaks, metering errors, and illegal pipe connections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

National physical pipe leaks alone waste roughly 1.44 billion cubic metres of clean water every year, equivalent to more than half of the Vaal Dam’s full capacity or the Western Cape’s entire annual water consumption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is according to the 2026 No Drop Progress Report, which revealed that total national water losses amount to 1.81 billion cubic metres per year, which amounts to approximately R26 billion annually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crisis is heightened by deteriorating sanitation systems, with 47% of municipal wastewater treatment works in a critical state, resulting in over 100 criminal charges against non-compliant municipalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cause of this is systemic municipal mismanagement, severe shortages of qualified technical staff, neglected maintenance, and the diversion of water revenue away from infrastructure upkeep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation Jack Bloom told Talk Radio 702<\/a> that around 30 to 40% of the country’s clean drinking water is wasted on the streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bloom said that much of the water wastage stems from municipal mismanagement, corruption and leadership issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He explained that when councils receive water funding, they spend it on other municipal expenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that there are legislative changes in parliament to force the ring-fencing of that money, so the money paid for water is reinvested in water, to reduce the number of leaking pipes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also addressed the wastewater treatment failures, including the severe pollution and sewage spills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Our waterways are terribly polluted with sewage spills, mostly from malfunctioning wastewater plants. 47% of them have been found to be in a critical condition,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bloom described the pollution in the Vaal area as “absolutely appalling.” He said that the Department of Water and Sanitation and Rand Water are setting up a special-purpose vehicle to address those problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also highlighted the importance of public-private partnerships and new sanitation technology, calling for a “sanitation revolution.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We have to use the latest technologies, we need to decentralise sanitation, we need to do a lot more water recycling and water conservation, and we’ve just got to be water-wise because we are a water-scarce country and it costs an enormous amount of money to build dams and to get water.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than half of all municipal wastewater systems across the country are in critical condition<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation Jack Bloom<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the Department of Water and Sanitation’s report, the national average for non-revenue water (NRW) has remained relatively constant since the 2023 No Drop Report. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Department said that this suggests NRW levels have stabilised, albeit at a high level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it also indicated that wastewater infrastructure continues to deteriorate, with 61% of all municipal wastewater systems across the country currently in critical or poor infrastructural condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Free State and Northern Cape consistently rank as the worst-performing provinces overall. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Free State faces a severe sanitation breakdown, with 98% of its wastewater treatment systems classified as poor or critical. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Northern Cape has the highest percentage of physical pipe leaks in the country at 44%, as well as the worst overall drinking water risk profile. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga are the worst provinces for unbilled and lost water (referred to as Non-Revenue Water), with both losing 60% of their municipal water supply to leaks, theft, and billing errors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Provinces like the Northern Cape, Limpopo, and North West showed the weakest administrative accountability, ranking as the lowest performers in submitting required corrective action plans to address their water losses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Western Cape leads South Africa in several water management metrics, including the lowest physical leak rate at 19.2%, the lowest Non-Revenue Water rate at 28.5%, and the lowest per-capita water consumption rate at 169 litres per capita per day (l\/c\/d). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The province also boasts a 100% submission rate for required regulatory Corrective Action Plans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gauteng, which is significantly smaller than the Western Cape, receives the largest volume of water, totalling 1.59 billion cubic meters per year, and records the highest daily per-capita usage at 243 l\/c\/d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Gauteng has a below-average physical leak percentage of 27.1%, its size translates to an annual loss of 431 billion litres of clean water, which is nearly equal to the Western Cape’s entire annual water supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa is facing a severe municipal water crisis, losing the same amount of water that the Western Cape uses every year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":820217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2111774566892626091","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2241102463376819","_sma_instagram_post_id":"17941087443399907","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[24596,26819,10120],"class_list":["post-879880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-department-of-water-and-sanitation-dws","tag-no-drop-report","tag-water-crisis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879880","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=879880"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":880103,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879880\/revisions\/880103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=879880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=879880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=879880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}