South Africa’s water crisis seems to become even more severe, with ageing infrastructure, lack of funding, water losses, and the malfunctioning of wastewater systems making it difficult for people to access clean water.
Thus, the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) is now urging the government to declare a national disaster.
As Commissioner Dr Henk Boshoff announced during an SAHRC webinar held on August 13, declaring a national disaster could facilitate mobilization of emergency funds, better cooperation between the national, provincial and local authorities, and faster procurement.
“Considering the magnitude of the water crisis,” Boshoff explained, “the commission feels that the water crisis must be declared a national disaster.”
What Makes South Africa’s Water Infrastructure So Stressed
This crisis is not due to any single issue.
Some of the key issues highlighted by the SAHRC include old infrastructure, lack of financing, shortage of technical expertise, debt incurred by municipalities and substantial water losses.
The commission has also pointed out the risks of discharge of raw sewerage in rivers, vandalism and theft of water infrastructure, corruption in water tankering and even the rise of “water mafias”.
Amongst other complaints, the SAHRC currently receives one of its biggest complaints on matters of water.
The government has set up the National Water Crisis Committee or “Watercom” and even released a National Water Action Plan. Nevertheless, the SAHRC raised doubts on whether this alone would be enough considering the magnitude of deterioration.
Wastewater Systems – A Problem on the Rise
One of the worst signs of the stress in South Africa’s water infrastructure is the state of wastewater systems.
According to the SAHRC, the 2025 Green Drop Report revealed a decrease in the number of systems that have been certified as Green Drop compliant from 22 in 2022 to only 14 in 2025.
Systems that received ratings of either excellent or good dropped from 14% to 8%, whereas those classified as being critical rose from 39% to 47%.
That implies that about half of all wastewater systems that were assessed were at risk of discharging partially treated or untreated wastewater into rivers and other water sources.
There is more than environmental degradation. Poorly treated wastewater poses dangers such as contamination and water-borne diseases in areas that are already facing service challenges.
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Water Quality Issues of Concern
According to the SAHRC, there are also similar issues regarding drinking water.
The report indicated that the 2025 Blue Drop assessment found that 10.5% of assessed water supply systems were high risk, whereas 7.9% were critical risk.
Also, the commission found that 49% of the systems were high risk for microbiological water quality.
This leaves a question regarding how safe the water being supplied by these systems to residents is.
Over One-Third of Water Is Being Wasted
Another critical issue is non-revenue water, which involves water being wasted due to leaks, infrastructure breakdowns, illegal connections, and many other inefficiencies.
South Africa’s non-revenue water level across the nation was 47.3% in 2025, very close to 47.4% in 2023.
This is quite high compared to the global standard of 30%.
This makes for a challenging cycle, where municipalities claim that they don’t have enough resources to maintain and repair infrastructure when so much water that could be billed is being wasted.
What A Disaster Declaration Would Do
According to the SAHRC, making the declaration could allow the government some leeway to move around funds and make quicker responses.
It could help with budgeting, coordination across government, and quicker acquisition of goods and services.
But a declaration cannot change all the structural challenges overnight.
As Boshoff said, the government currently does not have enough money to cover the whole problem, and it will take years to fix water systems in the country.
Thus, the first step is to stop the situation from getting any worse and create a system that would be able to deliver clean water in the future.
The current situation in South Africa is much more than a drought or even a lack of water.
