Ramaphosa warns of scheme by water mafia

President Cyril Ramaphosa has raised alarm over a sinister trend in South Africa’s water sector: criminal networks allegedly sabotaging water infrastructure to create business opportunities for illegal water trucking.

In an address at the Water and Sanitation Indaba in Midrand on Thursday, Ramaphosa alleged that dodgy business people orchestrated a calculated scheme to undermine municipal water services.

“There are people who make it their business to go and cut water lines, to create businesses for themselves so that they can cut water in trucks and tanks to our people,” he said.

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Criminal networks at work

The president described four unnamed prominent businesspeople who allegedly developed a lucrative water trucking business model.

These individuals allegedly employ “henchmen” to deliberately cut water lines, intentionally causing infrastructure failures that force local communities to rely on their water transportation services.

“They get their henchmen to go and cut the water lines and then make sure that there’s failure by the local authority to deliver water, leading to the alternative of relying on them to transport water because they make money out of transporting water,” Ramaphosa explained.

The president emphasised that “there’s no dignity for our people to be standing alongside the street just tapping water from a truck where somebody is making a lot of money”.

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Broader water infrastructure challenges

Water infrastructure sabotage is just one of many challenges facing South Africa’s water sector.

Ramaphosa said the country is ranked among the 25 most water-stressed countries globally, using more than 80% of its water supply to meet domestic needs.

Other significant issues include ageing infrastructure, vandalism, illegal connections, and widespread mismanagement at local government levels.

He said just over 50% of water was lost to leaks, while the Department of Water and Sanitation put the figure at 47.4%.

Ramaphosa outlined several strategic interventions to address these challenges, including:

• Reducing water license processing times from three years to 90 days
• Establishing a National Water Resource Infrastructure Agency
• Implementing a Water Services Amendment Bill to introduce licensing for water service providers
• Prioritising structural reforms in the water sector

“We must function efficiently, we must function using technology, we must bring in modernity, but more importantly, we must bring in speed and remove fraud as well as corruption in the whole sector,” he stated.

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A water ’emergency’

The president characterised the water situation as an emergency, urging immediate and decisive action.

He said there was no need for water projects and registrations for water licences to take long, adding that he would no longer ask for action plans but would instead seek to know the timelines of projects.

“When we take a decision, we must say when it is going to be implemented. It should no longer be will it be implemented. It should now be when will it be implemented,” Ramaphosa emphasised.

Ramaphosa reminded delegates of a fundamental truth: “As humans, we can survive for a time without food. But without water, there is no life, and we will perish.”

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