Who and what is AfriForum?

AfriForum is an Afrikaans civil rights organisation that protects the rights of minority groups at national as well as provincial level, and anyone who can identify with AfriForum’s principles and objectives may join the organisation. AfriForum’s community plan focuses on mobilising communities to thus take control of their own streets and neighbourhoods again. AfriForum ensures that your constitutional and civil rights are recognised and protected at national level.

Wie en wat is AfriForum?

AfriForum is ’n Afrikaanse burgerregteorganisasie wat die regte van minderheidsgroepe op sowel nasionale as provinsiale vlak beskerm, en enigiemand wat met AfriForum se beginsels en doelstellings kan identifiseer, mag by die organisasie aansluit. AfriForum se gemeenskapsplan fokus daarop om gemeenskappe te mobiliseer om só weer beheer terug te neem oor hul eie strate en woonbuurtes. AfriForum verseker dat jou grondwetlike én burgerregte op nasionale vlak erken en beskerm word.

Continued deterioration of water systems exposes government’s failure to act

South Africa’s water systems continue to deteriorate across the entire water services chain. This is AfriForum’s conclusion based on an analysis of the Department of Water and Sanitation’s (DWS) latest Blue Drop, Green Drop and No Drop reports.

The three reports, released by the DWS today, assess different components of the same system. The 2025 National Green Drop Report assessed wastewater treatment and the impact of sewage works on rivers and the environment. The 2026 Blue Drop Progress Report evaluated the quality of drinking water and whether water supplied to consumers is safe for consumption. The 2025 No Drop Progress Report focused on water losses, non-revenue water and the efficiency of municipal water use. Together, they provide a complete picture of the state of South Africa’s water supply system, which according to AfriForum is deteriorating by the day.

The 2025 Green Drop report confirmed the further deterioration in wastewater treatment by, among other things, indicating the percentage of municipal wastewater systems that are in a critical state. These systems, which failed to achieve the minimum Green Drop threshold of 31% and are regarded as dysfunctional, increased from 39% in 2022 to 47% in 2025. Effluent compliance of wastewater works remained extremely low, with microbiological compliance at 35% and chemical compliance at 48%. The number of Green Drop certified systems has further decreased from 22 to 14. In practical terms, this means that more wastewater treatment works are failing and more untreated sewage ends up in rivers.

The 2025 Blue Drop progress report shows no meaningful improvement since the 2023 audit. In terms of microbiological compliance, 49% of systems are classified as high risk. Chemical compliance is even worse, with 63% of systems in the high-risk category. The national risk profile remained unchanged, confirming that the systemic problems identified in 2023 have not been addressed.

The 2025 No Drop progress report shows that water losses remain unchanged. Non-revenue water still accounts for approximately 47% of all water losses, meaning that nearly half of treated water is lost or unpaid for. Physical water losses remain at 32% of system inputs and the infrastructure leakage index has worsened to around 7,5 indicating poor performance. At the same time, water use now exceeds available supply by 13%. Despite the R1,9 billion spent on water conservation efforts, non-revenue water, among other things, has increased by 87,9 million cubic metres per year. The report even attributes the apparent improvement in risk ratings to better data submission, not to an actual improvement in performance.

“Together, the three reports point to the complete collapse of an interconnected system. Wastewater treatment works are discharging untreated sewage into rivers, increasing the burden on drinking water systems. At the same time, municipalities are losing nearly half of their treated water, forcing increased extraction from already overused resources. This creates a cycle in which pollution reduces the availability of clean water; water treatment plants fail to cope; and inefficiencies in distribution increases the demand on a declining resource base,” says Marais de Vaal, AfriForum’s Advisor for Environmental Affairs.

Across all three reports, the same problems persist: large amounts of water losses, failing wastewater treatment and unsafe drinking water. The diagnosis of these problems, which are attributed to skills shortages and weak institutional capacity, has already been set out in the DWS’s 2023 reports. The latest reports show that these issues have not been addressed in the following three years and that conditions have either become entrenched or deteriorated further.

Marais de Vaal (English)

“If the role of the previous round of reports was to identify the problems, these latest reports point to the government’s failure to act. With no meaningful improvement in three years, the data is an indictment on a government that is unable to take the decisive, coordinated steps required to stabilise the water sector. The consequences are already visible in declining water quality, increasing supply interruptions and growing risks to public health and the environment,” says De Vaal.

AfriForum argues that the extent of the government’s failure to manage South Africa’s water systems must be put under the microscope and that accountability is needed at municipal and national level. The organisation further emphasises that the technical expertise and capacity of the private sector are needed to stabilise service delivery.

“Without decisive intervention and a shift towards competent, accountable governance, the continued deterioration of water infrastructure will accelerate, with severe consequences for communities, the economy and the environment,” warns De Vaal.