South African municipalities face crisis of R8.66 billion in water losses

THE National Treasury's latest State of Local Government Finances and Financial Management report has painted a bleak picture of the state of some of the country’s largest municipalities, including mounting water losses.

- LOYISO SIDIMBA

In the report for the 2023/24 financial year published last week, Treasury states that the overall water losses in the eight metropolitan municipalities amounted to R8.66 billion, with an average loss of 34.6% recorded, which it noted significantly exceeded the acceptable benchmarks and highlighted systemic inefficiencies that are considered highly problematic.

The benchmark makes provision that water losses should be between 15 and 30% and that the current losses indicate some serious distribution inefficiencies, widespread theft, and deteriorating or fractured infrastructure within municipal networks.

“The highest percentage losses were observed at eThekwini at 53.8% and Mangaung at 49%, meaning that over half of the water purchased by eThekwini cannot be billed.

“These significant losses point to systematic challenges such as ageing infrastructure, frequent pipe bursts, illegal connections, or weak monitoring and control mechanisms,” reads the report. While the City of Johannesburg lost 35% of its water, it was the highest financial loss at R2.9 billion.