SA’s sewage crisis can no longer be treated as a background noise.
It is not just a bad smell near a river, another spill onto a beach, or another treatment plant limping along behind locked gates.
It is a national environmental, public health and economic threat that reaches from inland water systems to coastal tourism zones.
The warning signs for a disaster are well-established. National wastewater assessments have repeatedly shown that a large share of treatment works fall into high-risk or critical-risk categories.
Ageing infrastructure, weak maintenance budgets, overloaded plants and limited technical capacity are driving declining compliance with discharge standards. When these systems fail, the impact does not stay inside the fence line.
The severity of the country’s water crisis is set out in the largely ignored Source to Supply Audit Report that was published by the Auditor-General in February last year.
The audit is the first of its kind by the Auditor-General and gives a comprehensive breakdown of the water sector, covering the entire chain from water sources to municipal supply.
The report exposes billions in financial losses and confirms that corruption and mismanagement are directly endangering public health. It makes it clear that the water crisis in SA is not only an infrastructure issue, it’s a financial and public health emergency driven by corruption and mismanagement.
Rivers carry untreated or partially treated sewage downstream. Dams that supply drinking water must treat increasingly polluted source water. Wetlands, estuaries and coastal ecosystems become overloaded with nutrients and pathogens.
Residents face foul odours, contaminated streams and worsening environmental conditions.
— Nkululeko Ncana
The social consequences are often felt first and most severely by communities living near failing sewer networks and polluted waterways. Residents face foul odours, contaminated streams and worsening environmental conditions.
In some cases, sewage pollution also increases the risk of water-borne disease where untreated effluent reaches human water sources. This is not simply an infrastructure issue. It is a quality-of-life issue, a public health issue and, increasingly, an economic one.
Tourism and local business are also exposed. SA’s coastline, beaches and outdoor recreation areas are major draws for domestic and international visitors.
Repeated sewage spills, pollution warnings and beach closures weaken public confidence and can reduce visitor numbers well before environmental systems reach full collapse.
Much of the wastewater infrastructure now in operation was designed decades ago for smaller populations and very different conditions. Rapid urban growth, expanding settlements and rising water demand have pushed many of these systems beyond their intended capacity. Without meaningful intervention, the pressure will only intensify, bringing higher treatment costs, worsening river pollution and deeper ecological degradation.
And while long-term infrastructure rebuilding is essential, it is not enough on its own. Large capital upgrades take years to plan, fund and implement. During that time, the pollution continues.
Over the years, the Auditor-General has found that the cause of the breakdowns of water treatment plants is due to corruption and unexplained delays in infrastructure maintenance and upgrades, despite billions of rand being allocated annually to municipalities.
Not only must the country repair and maintain its core wastewater infrastructure, but it must also adopt practical technologies that can reduce environmental harm immediately, while longer-term upgrades are underway.
Last week, DA’s mayoral candidate for the City of Johannesburg Helen Zille pledged during a speech to make addressing the water crisis her top priority if elected. Zille said she wanted partnerships with the private sector to repair crumbling water infrastructure.
Should she take over as mayor after the 2026 local government elections at the end of the year, Zille said she would also ringfence revenue from residents’ payments for essential services such as water, to ensure it is used specifically for fixes and maintenance, rather than being diverted elsewhere.
This should be the case in every municipality across the country quite frankly, and it boggles the mind not seeing politicians campaigning around the provision of safe, drinking water from our taps and natural streams alike.
SA does not need false choices between infrastructure renewal and innovation. It needs both. It needs competent plant operation, transparent monitoring, reliable maintenance budgets and long-term capital investment.
But it also needs credible partners that can help bridge the gap between today’s failures and tomorrow’s rebuilt systems. If deployed strategically, modern treatment technologies can help reduce environmental damage now and continue adding value into the future.
Wastewater management sits at the intersection of public health, environmental protection and economic sustainability. When it works, it is invisible. When it fails, the consequences spread quickly across communities, rivers, ecosystems and tourism economies.
Addressing SA’s wastewater crisis should therefore be treated as a national priority.
- Ncana is a freelance journalist
