Building on Madiba’s legacy by expanding access to water

By President Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa,  

This past weekend we celebrated the birthday of our nation’s founding father, President Nelson Mandela. Celebrating Madiba’s birthday through good works is significant because it turns our remembrance of this global icon into action. It reflects the belief that the most meaningful way to honour him is not merely to praise what he achieved, but to continue the work to which he devoted his life. For Madiba, the freedom he fought for was not merely the right to vote. It was the freedom to live with dignity, to live in decent conditions and to enjoy the basic necessities of life. 

In honour of Madiba’s legacy, we are responding to the need to expand access to safe and reliable water to underserved communities across South Africa. We launched the National Water Access Acceleration Programme through the decentralised water supply schemes.

This is part of one of the priorities identified in this year’s State of the Nation Address, to address the water crisis that is causing immense hardship for households, communities and businesses across the country.

The programme was launched in Hammanskraal in Gauteng, a community that has had longstanding challenges with water access, and where lives were tragically lost three years ago due to a cholera outbreak.

As part of the programme, boreholes were handed over to the Hammanskraal community, and the Klipdrift Package Water Treatment Plant was officially commissioned. Similar interventions were rolled out in other parts of Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. These include borehole drilling and groundwater development, rainwater harvesting and rehabilitating existing water supply schemes.

The programme is intended to shorten the time between identifying a community’s need and delivering a working water supply. It will use solutions suited to local conditions rather than waiting in every instance for large, complex infrastructure projects.

Expanding water access has been one of the most important achievements of our democracy. According to the 2022 Census, over 82% of households in the country had access to piped water either inside their dwelling or inside their yard. The proportion of households with no access to piped water more than halved between 1996 and 2022.

We must acknowledge that in too many municipalities, government has not succeeded to maintain infrastructure, to manage water services properly and to respond with sufficient urgency. Parts of our country are experiencing worsening water shortages and deteriorating water quality. In some places, ageing water infrastructure has collapsed.

Earlier this year, we established the National Water Crisis Committee to coordinate interventions across government. The committee is focused on strengthening municipal water and sanitation services, increasing water infrastructure investment, reforming water sector institutions, improving the legal and regulatory framework, and addressing corruption and criminality in the sector.

As we learned during the energy crisis, sustainable solutions require putting the necessary building blocks in place rather than relying on quick fixes. Our response to the water crisis focuses on sustainable, long-term reform. 

The National Water Action Plan brings together national, provincial and local government, water boards, regulators and water service authorities around a single programme of action, with clear responsibilities and timelines.

A number of immediate interventions are already being implemented, including rolling out emergency infrastructure projects such as the boreholes in Hammanskraal. These will continue to be expanded to reach more communities. 

Legislative and regulatory reform is also continuing. A National Water Resources Infrastructure Agency has been established to coordinate investment in bulk water infrastructure. Public hearings will soon begin on the Water Services Amendment Bill, which will strengthen enforcement and enable municipal managers who fail to manage water infrastructure to be held personally liable. 

Over the next three years, government has allocated R156 billion to water and sanitation infrastructure as part of its broader public infrastructure investment programme.

Municipalities are the frontline of service delivery and must be supported to deliver on this critical mandate. The National Treasury is supporting municipalities towards financial sustainability, including ensuring that revenue from water goes to the water entities so that it can be reinvested in infrastructure.

Where municipalities or officials fail to comply with environmental and water-services legislation, government will use the enforcement mechanisms available to it, including directives, criminal proceedings and, where the law permits, personal liability.

Water security is among government’s most urgent priorities. Households and businesses experiencing shortages and outages have had enough, and underserved communities across the country still waiting for taps to be installed 32 years into democracy are justifiably tired of waiting. 

We remain committed to overcoming this crisis. As the progress in reducing load shedding has shown, coordinated action and structural reform can produce results by matching emergency and short-term interventions with lasting changes to the entire water sector, including institutional, legislative and governance reform. 

Our ultimate goal is not merely to get over the current crisis, but to fulfil Madiba’s vision of all South Africans enjoying their constitutionally enshrined right to access to water and of this right being secured for generations to come. Water is dignity and therefore central to Mandela’s legacy.