{"id":621847,"date":"2025-12-08T08:59:43","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T06:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=621847"},"modified":"2025-12-08T11:21:56","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T09:21:56","slug":"south-african-crisis-worse-than-load-shedding-is-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/science\/621847-south-african-crisis-worse-than-load-shedding-is-here.html","title":{"rendered":"South African crisis worse than load-shedding is here"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Water outages have replaced load-shedding as the biggest public service issue reported on the popular South African app EskomSePush (ESP).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With load-shedding on the decline, ESP has adapted its platform to allow users to report and share updates about various service interruptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ESP Chats feature acts as a type of interactive community notice board for neighbourhoods to communicate about all types of events in their area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These include localised power cuts, water outages, Internet service disruptions, notifications about lost and found pets, and crime incidents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent feedback to MyBroadband, ESP co-founder Herman Maritz highlighted water outages as a major source of traffic, driving activity on the app to similar levels as on load-shedding days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“People are desperate for real-time info on water trucks, reservoirs, and restoration times,” he said. “In some metros, big water outages now generate as much traffic as an ordinary national load-shedding day.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maritz said that users were helping each other by sharing locations of water trucks and offering up access to boreholes and storage tanks during multi-day water outages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The information shared includes which streets have been covered with water tankers, which locations have queues, and what time the last tanker actually arrived. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maritz also said that load reduction \u2014 effectively a more targeted form of load-shedding \u2014 has become a daily reality for many users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We’ve seen sustained activity around targeted cuts in areas with illegal connections or overloaded infrastructure,” he said. “That’s why we added explicit load reduction support and alerts in the app.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ESP’s feedback about the water issues supports growing sentiment about South Africa’s ailing water infrastructure, resulting from poor planning, a lack of sufficient investment, and water theft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this year, the South African Institution of Civil Engineering (Saice) warned that the country’s water infrastructure was at a critical juncture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Millions of South Africans are grappling with dry taps, unreliable supply, and deteriorating infrastructure,” Saice said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Water tankers galore<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Water tanker used in the City of Tshwane<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Department of Water and Sanitation estimated the country would need to spend R90 billion every year over the next decade to upgrade and maintain water infrastructure to meet growing demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saice is concerned that municipalities lack the engineering expertise to put the funding to good use. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) recently warned about a systemic failure in water service planning and management across the country in a presentation to Parliament. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AGSA found that more than 59 municipalities spent R2.32 billion on emergency water tank services in the 2023\/24 financial year, including R419 million classified as irregular expenditure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An emerging problem is the so-called water mafias, which deliberately vandalise infrastructure to force authorities to use water tankers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These syndicates often have vested interests in water tanker businesses, which means they benefit financially from the disruptions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

AGSA senior manager Jolene Pillay also told the water and sanitation portfolio committee that 23 of 135 water service authorities had clean audits and the rest had legislation or performance compliance flags.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This means that more than 100 municipalities are either failing to meet the minimum requirements for water service delivery or are not effectively managing their resources,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 2023\/24 financial year, water service authorities reported a combined R14.89 billion in water losses, with 74 municipalities exceeding the accepted water loss threshold of 30% set by national standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gauteng’s primary water authority, Rand Water, previously raised serious concerns about “excessive” water withdrawals by municipalities in October 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In some cases, municipal authorities have blamed residents and businesses for straining supplies and implemented water restrictions \u2014 even when upstream dams were full.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Water expert Dr Anthony Turton believes the current issues are not due to water scarcity, but institutional failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Ultimately, it comes down to infrastructure, long-term planning and putting in place mitigating factors that will protect us in the future from climate change.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Water outages have replaced load-shedding as the biggest public service issue reported on the popular South African app EskomSePush.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":557601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31750],"tags":[99181,71338,58380,82681,42372,93219,93225],"class_list":["post-621847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-auditor-general-of-south-africa","tag-department-of-water-and-sanitation-dws","tag-eskomsepush","tag-south-african-institution-of-civil-engineering-saice","tag-water","tag-water-outages","tag-water-shortages"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621847"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621847"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":622216,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621847\/revisions\/622216"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}