Municipalities Return R1 Billion as Water Crisis Worsens Across SA

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]Welcome back, you're still tuned in to News and Views, myself, Solly Mkhize.

[00:00:03]The time is 8:36 Central African Time and we're going to be switching gears to a very very concerning turn of events. I think it's a story that's affected all of us.

[00:00:14]South Africa's worsening water crisis.

[00:00:17]It is once again under the spotlight, but this time around, this is after reports that municipalities across the country, get this, returned more than 1 billion rand in unspent regional bulk infrastructure grant funding to National Treasury over the past 5 years. So, over the 5 years, municipalities, including the city of Johannesburg, including Vaal, include everywhere, 1 billion rand which was meant to fix water infrastructure. They're like, we don't have any use for it. We're going to take it back.

[00:00:49]While you open your tabs and nothing comes out. So, it's a very very concerning state of affairs and we're going to be looking at the effect of that. The funding that supposed to expand the critical water infrastructure in communities that are already struggling with aging systems, burst pipes, sewage spills, and unreliable access to clean water.

[00:01:14]And it hasn't been used and it's it's really really concerning. Activists say you know, bureaucratic failure and and poor planning and just the general lack of accountability are leaving us citizens, millions of people across South Africa vulnerable while desperately needed funds sit unused and it's surprising that they sit unused and they're not stolen or you know, disappear into thin air. But we're going to touch on that. A very very concerning state of affairs and joining us now is the executive manager of WaterCan and justice activist Tofelo Adam Buck. Thank you so much for joining us. Always a pleasure. Welcome to News and Views.

[00:01:55]Good morning and thank you for having me on your show.

[00:01:58]Now, the pleasure is all ours and I think let's jump right into it. How alarming is is the state of affairs?

[00:02:03]Municipalities having returned over 1 billion rand in unspent water infra- infrastructure funding.

[00:02:10]Why? Why are we here knowing and understanding um the crisis that we all facing when it comes to water provision and the infrastructure um across municipalities all over South Africa?

[00:02:23]Yeah, the why is a difficult one, but I think yeah, it's appalling. I think that it's you know, in a time when we know that our water and sanitation is falling apart across the country.

[00:02:33]Uh and for for municipalities to not spend and fix where they need to is actually it's criminal, you know, because what happens is that people don't get access to clean safe drinking water. They don't have access to clean uh toilets, etc. So, and they're and they're killing off our river ecosystems. So, they're affecting everything along this chain.

[00:02:53]So, really I think it's time for some consequence management. Uh we've asked that the list of municipalities who have not spent and have returned money to actually be uh public publicly known, so we know which municipalities are struggling. And it's not enough that national government says this.

[00:03:13]We know that the the municipalities are in trouble. The the Auditor General has issued report after report which says our municipalities are struggling.

[00:03:22]What are we going to do as a country to make sure that things are changed? Um and that is that is my concern. And you're right, it's rather they return it than it gets wasted like we've seen this morning with a a very you know, Emfuleni spent 24 million rand on toilets. Literally comes to 800,000 rand a toilet.

[00:03:46]Wow.

[00:03:47]What are they building?

[00:03:49]And it's falling apart. It's shack equipment. It's it doesn't even work anymore.

[00:03:54]So, I mean you know, there's wastage, there's corruption, and then there's just misusing uh funds. And I do think at the end of the day, in the case of Emfuleni, we need to know who were those contractors. Who got that contract to build it? Who got rich off this? Cuz it's not enough now for us to keep pointing our fingers at government.

[00:04:15]Who's the partner, and it's the private sector that's getting rich on it.

[00:04:19]Mhm. Mhm. Very, very true. And I think that's the aspect that we don't look into because when people think, you know, corruption and mismanagement of funds and maladministration, they always point into government. And most of the time is these private companies that get the tenders, you know, to build these toilets and to repair water infrastructure where the state fails.

[00:04:39]But generally the return of such big amount, I mean, 1 billion rand, you can only imagine the difference that it could have made.

[00:04:49]What does it reveal about because when you look at the state of governance and just planning within those municipalities, I'm sure you deal with them a lot. Um are there, you know, anything that you've deduced over the years while trying to figure out what's happening um you know, with the likes of the city of Johannesburg, Emfuleni, as you mentioned, that you can point out and say, "Well, we are in trouble because of 1 2 3 4." What are some of those key factors that you know, have been revealed to you while dealing with them?

[00:05:17]So, there's a few things. One is the obvious um the party politics at play, right? If you look at municipalities, some municipalities have done well, some haven't because of coalitions, and then the coalitions break up. So, let's look at city of Joburg, for example, it is completely failing.

[00:05:34]It has no money in their budget, and um a lot of that has to do with the amount of changing mayors we've had over a period of 8 years. At least now we've had one with for about, I think, 1 and 1/2 years now, it's been stable. But, that kind of instability does affect um kind of service delivery, right? So, it's that one. The second thing is the lack of skills.

[00:05:57]So, we need to make sure that we have the right skilled people in those positions, whether it is in finance, whether it's at a plumbing level, or uh you know, fitters and turners, all of that. We need to make sure we have those skills, and I think many municipalities don't.

[00:06:14]The third issue, and we cannot run away from it, is that there is an element of mismanagement and corruption.

[00:06:21]Uh and I don't think we've clearly gotten to the, you know, to to to we we probably just got to the surface of how bad it is in some municipalities.

[00:06:30]And so, that needs to be looked at much better. Um and and I think the bottom line is that a lot of we don't have consequence management. So, people can do all the things wrong, but they still have their job.

[00:06:46]You know, if if you start coming late for your job, and if you just do nonsense reporting, at some point you'll be fired.

[00:06:54]But, that's not happening at municipal level. So, we need to get people fired, and I think also, in cases where money is gone missing, where things have gone wrong in terms of the finances, people must be charged. It happens in any other kind of arena. So, I think it's all of that combination that then leaves a municipality stuck with the same behavior. But, if we don't start changing that behavior, um there's no level of you are responsible, even as a mayor, you are responsible for this budget, you've messed it up, you've got to step down.

[00:07:29]When last have we seen a mayor step down because of that? Never. And that is the bottom line. The buck has to stop with the senior managers. The city manager and the mayor must account. And then, of course, the the finance uh person need to account for all of these mismanagement of funds.

[00:07:51]The the the local government elections later in the year, I think it's sometime in November.

[00:07:56]And we're pointing at how the institutions and and and those that are in government and these various municipality positions need to be held accountable for their failures.

[00:08:07]How much of responsibility do citizens have? Especially when it comes to number one being you know, active participating voters and number two being active citizens and being part of organizations like yours.

[00:08:21]How much of the blame honestly can we also put into ourselves where we just don't do enough. There are people that say, you know what? I'm not going to vote. It's not going to do any kind make any kind of difference or you know, I'm not going to go out and protest because you know, there's a stigma of who generally protest in this country and what they look like. The responsibility, the onus on us making sure that those that are in these positions are held accountable and we fire them by voting. How much of a factor is that and how important is it also?

[00:08:52]I think you've touched on a very, very important point. Firstly, I do protest.

[00:08:56]I don't know what is the stigma.

[00:08:59]>> [laughter] >> Well, there is a stigma against you.

[00:09:03]I guess so.

[00:09:05]So, I think the issue is that it's very important. I think that we forget citizens forget the power they have over what's going on. So, you're right.

[00:09:17]We cannot sit back and say, this is this government, but the people are voting them in.

[00:09:23]So, I think it's very important to vote.

[00:09:26]But having said that democracy does not stop at the voting polls. It starts at the voting polls.

[00:09:34]Our work must not we cannot become complacent. Maybe we've become lazy citizens.

[00:09:40]Maybe we just vote and we're like, "Well, whatever happens then happens."

[00:09:43]No, I think we need to turn that around.

[00:09:46]We're seeing it more and more where community groups, whether it's residents associations, whether it's church groups, mosque groups, um you know, uh whatever it is, they are starting to take over their little suburbs or areas.

[00:10:04]They picked up.

[00:10:08]But also, as citizens, we know when things are going wonky, right? Um so, if you if you see toilets being built and you think that those toilets are nonsense, what is what is government doing? Take a picture.

[00:10:22]Send it to the media. We can start being more visible and vocal around what is going wrong in our society. And and whole and doing that holds government accountable.

[00:10:36]So, we can be kind of the whistleblowers, but it's more like we're going to keep you on track. You said you're going to fix this road, you fixed it last month, but look it's broken again.

[00:10:47]It's when things like that come to the media and come to the fore, we can then go to government and say, "Who got this contract? Why did they get that contract?" And and we can unpack the the kind of corruption. So, people less corruption happens when things are open and transparent.

[00:11:03]And when information is available. And I think that comes from our role.

[00:11:08]We need to also be be mindful that we need to start talking to our children, um the the generation coming through that it's not okay to be corrupt. It's not okay to get a quick fix and be rich.

[00:11:22]We're losing that ethic in our society.

[00:11:25]Um and we as ordinary citizens have a very big role in deciding on who goes into government, in unpacking, you know, and whistleblowing, and keeping government on track, and then also educating the generations to come that this is not how we should be doing things. Um also in terms of voting is that what we need to realize is that we can vote any party in. Because of the complexity of municipalities, that one person, one party is not going to fix uh a failing municipality. It's the society that's going to fix it. It's us. The media, the activists, the the organizations, the people on the ground are going to fix it, not one party. And we must remember that our power actually is stronger than some of the parties that are going to get in there.

[00:12:16]Mhm. Mhm. Very, very important. And I think that should be a quote, you know, um what you're saying is very important, especially leading up to the elections.

[00:12:25]But but just lastly, before before I let you go, um doc, you you you you interact with some some of the municipality officials quite a lot. Do Do you think it has dawned on them just how bad the situation is? Do you think they understand just how critical um you know, things are, especially here in the city of Johannesburg? I think we heard, I think it was um yesterday afternoon where there was a letter being read, and you know, there were all kinds of um you know, allegations being made about the city of Johannesburg and it being beyond, you know, fixing at this point, and it needs to be put under administration. Do Do you think they understand that we are moving to a very, very dangerous point where it could be beyond repair. It could get to a point where we can't just get it right anymore, and we are so very, very close to that.

[00:13:16]Yeah.

[00:13:16]You know, there are There's a combination, right? I mean, if you look at any municipality, any big one like city of Joburg, there's a lot of people that they employ.

[00:13:26]So, there are some very good people that are really trying very hard to keep things moving. But, there are also there are also people that feel like, well, doesn't matter to me.

[00:13:39]I'll still get paid.

[00:13:41]And I'll still get my increase.

[00:13:43]It doesn't matter. I don't care. And then there are the people who've lost hope.

[00:13:48]That they've tried and they just they've lost hope. So, there's that combination that you're dealing with. And what is needed to change is leadership.

[00:13:58]There's we don't have leaders. We have politicians.

[00:14:03]And they're not necessarily leaders.

[00:14:07]We need people to reinvigorate the whole and this is not just for one municipality, across the country. The people who are mayors, look across.

[00:14:17]There are very few that can say that they are actually leaders and they can motivate their people to get things done.

[00:14:27]Very few.

[00:14:28]That's a big problem.

[00:14:30]Yeah, very big one. Dr. Ferial Adam, executive manager of WaterCAN and climate change activist. Thank you so much for joining us. Always a pleasure.

[00:14:38]Thank you so much.

[00:14:40]There we go. And with that, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, News and Views continues.

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