Citizens and the private sector are increasingly having to make a plan. Some see this as a huge opportunity. From Moneyweb.
Now that load shedding appears to be under some kind of control, water appears to be the next big crisis facing the country, with demand for boreholes and water tanks apparently following the same trajectory as solar panels in the early days of the power crisis.
Load shedding created massive disruptions to water supply since critical pumps were unable to function. The percentage of households that experienced water interruptions lasting more than two days at a time or 15 days in total in 2023 increased to 35.8% from 24.3% in 2012.
It’s not just load shedding that throttled water supply. Many of the water ‘crises’ around the country are the result of sabotage, theft and vandalism.
There’s no sugar-coating the national picture: nearly half the water (47%) supplied across the country earns no revenue due to leaking pipes, poorly functioning or non-existent water meters, illegal connections and billing problems. That figure is up from 37% in 2014, according to the Blue Drop Report published by the Department of Water and Sanitation in 2023.
Planned supply cuts
In the town of Ficksburg in the Free State, the local municipality has cut the supply of water between 7pm and 7am due to the decline of raw water received from both the Caledon River and the nearby Meulspruit Dam.
Every few months the taps run dry, with different reasons given each time – from low water levels to broken or leaking pipes, malfunctioning pumps, and the absence of spare parts.
One resident tells Moneyweb he’s lost count of the number of times the town’s taps ran dry for want of a rubber seal that should cost a few thousand rands.
In the meantime, the municipality urges residents to make use of private bowsers dispensing water, leading many to suspect the crisis is engineered to provide revenue for private water suppliers.
“This is just another mafia operation,” says one resident, who asked not to be named. “The water gets cut off and the private water tank suppliers get to make a killing.”
In July, Gauteng residents had to endure around 120 hours of water outages affecting Joburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni as water supplier Rand Water went on a maintenance blitz. This was intended to fix some of the maintenance backlogs that have bedevilled the economic heartland.
Read: SA economic hub’s water system on verge of collapse
But the problem is much bigger than that, with many parts of the country going weeks without water.
Tanks
“Water supply is increasingly uncertain due to a combination of factors, such as deteriorating infrastructure, environmental degradation, persistent droughts and disparities in water and sanitation access,” says Craig Forbes, director of water tank supplier Africa Tanks. The company is currently expanding its production capacity by a third to cope with increasing demand.
Mpact, SA’s largest paper, plastics packaging and recycling business, recently entered the water tank business by acquiring a strategic stake in Africa Tanks.
“Just as load shedding drove the rapid adoption of electricity self-generation, we foresee a large and rapidly growing market for high-quality water tanks as households and institutions invest in water security to ensure continuity of supply,” says Bruce Strong, CEO of Mpact.
Not all local authorities like the idea of water tanks as backups fed by municipal supply, since this creates spikes in demand at critical times.
This is especially problematic when water supply has been disrupted and then reconnected, in much the same way Eskom complained about backup battery systems drawing excess electricity when load shedding is suspended. This can overburden municipal water systems, but there seems little they can do about it.
Backup water tanks are sprouting in homes, farms and businesses across the country to keep the taps running in anticipation of supply disruptions to come – as seems almost certain to happen.
SA will run out of water by 2030, perhaps even earlier, unless this crisis is arrested and reversed.
Read: A possible solution to SA’s water problem
SA’s per capita water consumption is 218 litres per person per day compared to the international average of 173 litres.
“This is an anomaly given that South Africa is a water scarce county,” says the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS).
“Going forward, water services institutions have to commit significant resources to curb water losses and address non-revenue water,” says the Blue Drop Report.
Lessons from Cape Town’s ‘Day Zero’
Capetonians remember the ‘Day Zero’ event in 2018 when a one-in-400 year drought almost dried up the city’s taps.
Read: Heavy rain or not, Cape Town’s water supply remains constrained [July 2024]
The country could learn a few lessons from this experience and the way it was handled by city management. Residents were given daily updates on the crisis based on accurate measurements of dam levels and daily drinking water production. Water saving measures were introduced and pressure management systems fine-tuned to reduce leakage rates.
Studies show that pressure management is one of the most effective ways to extend asset life and reduce leakages, which can sometimes account for up to 70% of water losses.
Clearing water-guzzling alien vegetation saved millions of litres, new groundwater sources were tapped, and the city quadrupled spend on water and sewer pipe replacement.
Water quality
Another issue of concern is the deteriorating quality of water, with the number of municipalities piping poor quality water increasing to 46% in 2022 from just 5% in 2014.
Water quality tends to be good in metro areas, with the standard of network infrastructure rated the highest in Gauteng and the Western Cape.
Listen/read: Nearly half of SA’s water is unsafe to drink
By law, municipalities are obliged to inform residents when water quality poses a health risk, but only 43% of them adhere to this requirement.
There is evidence that the DWS is taking urgent action.
Some 29% of water supply authorities with low Blue Drop scores, based on a number of measures, were required to submit detailed corrective action plans and placed under regulatory surveillance, in accordance with the Water Services Act.
Funding is available for water projects, but SA has a reputation of mispricing water, with political interference in tariff setting and procurement, not to mention poor recovery rates by municipalities, according to the National Business Initiative.
Read: Joburg has the cheapest water, Durban the priciest among metros
Large metros are better able to raise bond finance, but smaller and poorly managed municipalities find themselves wards of the state (and taxpayers), hence the DWS decision to place the worst performers on suicide watch.
One encouraging initiative announced in 2023 pairs several large mining houses with government in a R27 billion water project aimed at supplying mines and hundreds of thousands of households with drinking water in Limpopo. This represents a departure from previous water ventures which are traditionally led by government.
Read: V&A Waterfront to commission R184m desalination plant early 2024
Just as the private sector stepped up to bail out Eskom’s faltering energy supply, and now Transnet, so we are seeing a similar development in water as private operators bring capital and intellectual heft to the next big crisis facing SA.
