The department of water and sanitation (DWS), in partnership with Rand Water, has launched a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) aimed at fixing water and sanitation in the Emfuleni local municipality in the Vaal.
This is meant to address years of dry taps, leaking pipes and raw sewage flowing through the streets and people’s homes.
Rand Water managing director Maubane Mahlare, who is driving the process, told Sowetan the SPV will take full control from July 2026.
He said among the challenges the entity would be inheriting include defaulting customers and a culture of non-payment.
Mahlare said around R1.1bn in capital expenditure has been budgeted for water and sanitation infrastructure over the first phase of the turnaround.
“Approximately R176m for maintenance over the same period, is specifically ring-fenced to move away from a fix when it breaks approach towards planned, preventive maintenance.”
Service delivery has deteriorated so badly that even businesses are suffering.
Recently, Sowetan reported that a collapsed sewer line was threatening business operations in Emfuleni.
Several business owners said they were negatively affected by the ongoing problem of sewerage spill, blocked drains and toilets that cannot be used by customers.
“Service delivery failures, including dry taps, overflowing sewers and poor sanitation that have been described as a human rights disaster triggered formal complaints to oversight bodies,” Mahlare said. “It’s important to be honest: this is a turnaround, not a quick fix.”
Service delivery failures, including dry taps, overflowing sewers and poor sanitation that have been described as a human rights disaster triggered formal complaints to oversight bodies
— Maubane Mahlare, Rand Water managing director
He said there have been years of poor service and most of the water produced was not billed or paid for, largely due to leaks, illegal connections, faulty meters, and inaccurate billing.
“People have become accustomed to either not receiving a bill, not trusting the bill, or not experiencing consequences for non-payment,” he said.
Many properties had faulty, inaccessible, or no meters at all, undermining accurate billing, he said, adding that the vacancy rate of Metsi a Lekoa was sitting at 68%, with fewer engineers, technical staff and process controllers.
“This increases the overtime [payments] since staff must work prolonged hours.”
Mahlare said there was extreme vulnerability of the municipality’s water and sanitation infrastructure.
“The vulnerability index score for Emfuleni’s water and sanitation infrastructure is currently extremely high, over 0.9.
“The DWS set the acceptable limit below 0.25, which is a concerning score for this parameter. The very high index reading shows that the infrastructure systems of Emfuleni are highly susceptible to failure, damage, and disruption.”
Mahlare said ineffective management of solid waste and stormwater further compromises the system. “Communities often dispose of large, foreign objects directly into the system, leading to severe blockages,” Mahlare said.
He said examples of the items frequently found in the infrastructure include large stones, concrete materials, cow hides and other debris.
Mahlare said these blockages severely disrupt the flow, causing overflows, system failures, and contributing to the overall vulnerability of the water and sanitation assets.
“The SPV is being set up precisely because the current model has failed to sustain infrastructure in an acceptable condition,” he said.
He said once the SPV takes full control, residents would see some early localised improvement as the team tackles low-hanging fruit such as high-impact leak repairs in critical suburbs, quick wins on meter repairs and replacements as well as targeted unblocking and repairs at problem pump stations or sewer hotspots.
Sowetan
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