Access to clean water and sanitation is a human right enshrined in Chapter 2 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. To give effect to this, the Water Services Act was enacted in 1997 and provides that; everyone has a right of access to basic water supply and sanitation services, every water services institution must take steps to realise these rights, and every municipality must plan in its water services development plan to realise these rights.
Rather than improve matters for the people of South Africa, many municipalities across the country are overwhelmed by the challenges of decaying infrastructure, lack of capacity, competence, commitment, funding, and growing populations. The Maruleng Local Municipality (MLM) and its distant service-providing big brother, the Mopani District Municipality (MDM, based in Giyani, 160 km away) have not escaped the ravages of time that have come to haunt the residents of the small Limpopo town of Hoedspruit (MLM) where service delivery has failed its residents spectacularly.
In not fulfilling their mandate municipalities have created huge lakes and rivers of raw sewerage across the country which have negatively affected the health and lives of millions of South Africans. In one such incident in Hammanskraal, a cholera outbreak left more than thirty residents dead and 100 hospitalised. The contaminated water came from a source downstream from failing sewage plants. Raw sewerage contains high levels of E.coli bacterium which inevitably lead to high levels of pathogens like cholera, typhoid, hepatitis A and B, HIV, salmonella, shigella, streptococcus and many more. These result in sustained health threats as most are rarely cleaned up. The National Water Act makes it a criminal offence for polluters not to advise the SAPS or water catchment authorities of spills. This is never complied with, and incident response protocols are seldom activated.
As is typical across the country, a large part of the services provided (or not provided) to the local community are delegated to a district municipality, to create economies of scale while providing services to smaller communities that would otherwise not be available. Sadly, the finances of many district municipalities are in disarray and with debt levels rising, service levels have declined. Two wards in the MLM contribute an estimated 90% of all municipal rates and taxes, but get about 4% of the municipal budget spent on them. Clearly, this is not a sustainable business plan for a municipality that hopes to attract new business and future investment, while not being able to supply the most basic of services to its citizens.
In the last two years the Department of Water and Sanitation has opened over thirty criminal cases against municipalities across the country, which have led to several municipalities receiving substantial fines. The problem with this is that the municipalities just pass on the fines to the rate payers and tax payers. More recent cases have seen criminal charges laid against individual senior municipal managers which may have more impact.
A stink in “The Hoed”
Residents in the town of Hoedspruit and pupils at three local schools have been particularly badly affected by ongoing raw sewerage spills over many years, from a non-approved waste-water treatment works. The latest such incident, which started mid-January 2025, had an estimated flow rate of 1 million litres a day! This was only resolved mid-March 2025. Water sampling in dams, drainage channels and the Zandspruit (a tributary of the Blyde River) indicated extreme levels of E.coli and pathogens such as typhoid, cholera and various bacteriosis.
Periodic spills have been caused by pipe blockages, load shedding, pump failures and capacity constraints of the emergency sewerage overflow tank. In the latest two-month saga, repair crews determined that there was a blockage in the main sewerage pipeline. For weeks large sections of pipeline were dug up, cut open to inspect for blockages and rejoined. Further sewerage spills resulted at several sites.
Eventually, it was concluded that the problem lay in the pumps not meeting design capacity. Two new high-capacity pumps were installed, and the problem was resolved – at least till the next incident. Since March 2024 a new standby genset has sat unconnected in a shed at the waste-water treatment works.
Historically, Hoedspruit sprung up around the SANDF airbase in the town during the 1970’s. Due to its origins as a small cluster of houses, a few shops and a railway station, the Defence Force and the Department of Works at the time, generously agreed to supply bulk water and sewerage services to the town through its water treatment facility and sewerage treatment works. The exponential growth of the town came somewhat unexpectedly and has put a huge strain on the facility which now operates at over 150% of its designed capacity.
There is also an understandable increased reluctance by the SANDF to supply these services without compensation from the local (MLM) and district municipalities that inexplicably charge residents for these services.
Residents in Hoedspruit have been communicating with the Regional Director and the enforcement unit of the Department of Water and Sanitation’s regional office in Mpumalanga (the enforcement department relates to the Blyde/Olifants catchment area) for over 18 months, only to be advised two weeks ago(!) that they are only attending to the issue of resolving the spills, but not the infrastructural challenges faced by the MDM.
The intervention of the Minister of Water Affairs, Ms Pemmy Majodina and the Department of Water and Sanitation Mpumalanga, resulted in a ‘panicked’ flurry of activity and two new high-capacity pumps were installed at the Leguan Street waste-water treatment works in the town. The Department of Water and Sanitation Mpumalanga, at a meeting with the Mopani District Municipality officials on 26 January 2025, instructed them to provide a plan for a long-term solution to sewerage spills in Hoedspruit by 28 February 2025. Community members with project management experience offered their services to assist in drawing up the plan.
Unfortunately, these offers were not taken up, and the Department of Water and Sanitation rejected the plan submitted by the Mopani District Municipality. They have now indicated that their enforcement action has led to criminal charges being laid against senior officials from the Mopani District Municipality in respect of similar incidents in Namakgale and Phalaborwa, together with the case which Hoedspruit residents laid in September 2023. Those charged include the Municipal Manager, the Senior Manager of Technical Services, the Chief Financial Officer and the Senior Manager: Water and Sanitation.
A cluttered game board
Sadly, the Department of Water and Sanitation: Mpumalanga, also advised that they are attending to the enforcement action only, not the infrastructural challenges. This is the jurisdiction of the Department of Water and Sanitation: Limpopo, where residents will now have to start afresh with a new player! Eighteen wasted months!
The role players are now: the Mopani District Municipality, the Maruleng Local Municipality, the South African National Defence Force: Hoedspruit Airforce Base, the Department of Water Affairs & Sanitation: Mpumalanga, the Department of Water Affairs & Sanitation: Limpopo, the Limpopo Department of Economic Development, Environment and Tourism (LEDET), and the Limpopo-Olifants River Water Management Authority – seven in all.
Where to from here?
There is still no end in sight for the residents of Maruleng. Abandoned projects include a water pipeline from Parma to Hoedspruit, an abandoned wate-water treatment works in Kampersrus, whilst the R1.4 billion Mametja-Sekororo regional bulk water project at The Oaks remains incomplete.
As recently as October 2024, the Minister of Water and Sanitation confirmed: “Public-private partnerships could go a long way to accelerating the provision of water services infrastructure and address the gaps for which the government did not have sufficient funding or skills.”
While this sounds like a great idea, the reality is quite harsh. For starters, how do you get decision-makers from all seven major role-players into one room to agree to a total overhaul of the status quo? Previous initiatives have floundered for this very reason. Perhaps the time has come for the Department of Water and Sanitation to take the lead and set out exactly what their version of a public-private partnership should look like, and then facilitate (drive) the process.
Funding for such a holistic public-private partnership in Maruleng could require as much as R 1.5 billion – including the outstanding debt on the Lower Blyde Pipeline Network. The Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent facilitates processes to support capital-raising techniques, to enhance municipal development needs, and Municipal Infrastructure Grants through financing mechanisms and establishing long-term public-private partnerships. International donor aid may be an option, now that Hoedspruit is developing into a sizeable tourist mecca, the number of foreigners living in the area, the preservation of the Kruger to Canyon Biosphere and job creation for all the residents of Maruleng.
Some serious decisions and interventions and actions need to be taken. A piecemeal approach to solving this pressing issue is not an option. This requires a holistic approach that makes financial sense and is sustainable and replicable. Without strong support from the Department of Water and Sanitation, it is a non-starter.
