The water wasted in Gauteng each year equals the Western Cape's entire annual use, and eThekwini's losses equal all the water used in Limpopo, Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation Dr Jack Bloom told the Sustainable Vegetable Farming Seminar at Nampo Cape in Bredasdorp. Auditor-general figures put municipal water losses at about R15 billion in the 2023/24 financial year, and only 23 of the country's 144 water service authorities achieved clean audits, most of them in the Western Cape.

With El Niño developing and warmer conditions set to raise demand on systems already leaking, Bloom said municipalities were expected to spend at least 8% of the value of their infrastructure on repairs and maintenance, but years of underinvestment had left pipes leaking and supply interrupted, while water revenue was too often spent elsewhere. 'I can't ask people to save water when there's water gushing down the streets,' he said. 'It's not glamorous to fix the pipes.'

Failing wastewater systems add pollution: the Green Drop report found 47% of treatment plants in a critical state, many no longer treating sewage effectively before it enters rivers. The department has opened 96 criminal cases against local authorities, after directives and corrective plans as a first step; it is pursuing contempt-of-court proceedings against Rand West City Local Municipality, and a Mpumalanga municipality has been fined R650 million. Proposed amendments would make responsible officials criminally liable and ring-fence water revenue for maintenance.

'What starts in the cities and towns doesn't stay in the cities and towns,' Bloom said. For agriculture the first concern is availability, with leaks tightening an already limited resource; the second is quality, as sewage and pollutants reach rivers used by farmers downstream. Export producers must meet water standards and may have to treat water themselves or lose markets, and polluted water can hold back livestock growth.

South Africa cannot control rainfall or El Niño, Bloom said, but it can fix infrastructure, pollution and avoidable losses: 'In many instances, our water crisis is a man-made crisis. It's a governance crisis' — and therefore fixable, with partnerships on canal repair and clearing invasive alien vegetation among the practical steps. 'We must fix what we can fix.'

Source: Farmers Weekly South Africa