Survey shows South Africans do not trust water from municipalities

A new survey has shown that a large number of South Africans do not trust the quality of the water they drink.

According to the survey by WaterCAN, an initiative of lobby group the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), only 37% of locals “routinely” trust the quality of their drinking water.

WaterCAN received 1,291 responses to the survey, with most from Gauteng and the Western Cape and the least number of responses from the Northern Cape. Based on the results, more than 45% of respondents do not trust the quality of the water they drink.

Many respondents felt the poor state of water was due to inefficient municipalities, dysfunctional wastewater plants and poor infrastructure.

The government’s recently published Blue Drop 2022 report showed that water quality continues to decline, with 23% of municipalities flagged as being at critical risk.

Access to sufficient, safe water is a basic right highlighted in the constitution, with municipalities tasked with the provision of water services while provincial and national government is required to provide oversight to ensure quality and access are not compromised.

Yet many of SA’s 257 municipalities the coal face of service delivery are facing acute management and financial problems, leading to a failure to provide services and meet debt obligations.

Municipal audit outcomes, a measure of financial governance, routinely paint a bleak picture of the state of the country’s municipalities.

Millions of rand for electricity, water and sewerage services and other infrastructure projects are mismanaged and disappear each month, at the expense of businesses and job creation efforts. In 2021, food and beverages group Clover SA announced it was closing the country’s biggest cheese factory and moving it from Lichtenburg to KwaZulu-Natal because of poor roads, water shortages and constant power outages.

A provincial breakdown of the WaterCAN survey indicates that 90% of respondents from the Eastern Cape do not trust their drinking water — with the authors of the report pointing out that this is not a surprise given the approaching Day Zero in Nelson Mandela Bay metro and surrounding towns. In the Free State 81% of respondents raised reservations about their drinking water, followed by Mpumalanga (79%), Limpopo (74%) and North West (74%). The two provinces that had somewhat positive comments are Gauteng and the Western Cape. In Gauteng, 59% of respondents said they did not trust their drinking water, while 43% in the Western Cape raised similar concerns.

The majority of the respondents who were happy with their water were in Johannesburg or Cape Town, with specific mention of the reliability of the services of the Rand Water bulk water utility, which supplies a number of municipalities; and the City of Cape Town.

Other positive responses were from people who had borehole water, filter their tap water, or use rain water harvesting and thus are not reliant on municipal water.

Some of the main reasons for people not trusting the quality of drinking water include water having a bad smell or taste, a sense that there was too much chlorine, or water which looked murky or muddy.

According to the authors of the report, a number of respondents mentioned people falling ill after drinking water and also suggested that this could be due to high levels of E coli.

“Two responses stand out, with one respondent reporting recently finding tadpoles in the tap water, indicating a failing water system. The other response reflects people’s frustration and lack of trust in government, commenting that ‘the municipal councillors and staff drink bottled water in their meetings while they claim that the water they supplied to communities is clean but they don’t drink tap water’,” the authors of the report wrote.

The survey is telling but it is not a surprise, they said.

“The results are in line with what we have seen in the Green and Blue Drop reports of failing water quality and wastewater treatment across the country. In a country that has 39% of municipal wastewater systems in a critical condition and 77% of water supply systems failing to meet legal standards and limits, residents are entitled to expect more warnings and notices from municipalities on the quality of the drinking water. Much greater transparency is needed on the quality of drinking water.”

Ferrial Adam, WaterCAN manager, said the responses highlighted in the survey were an indication that people were clearly fed up with local governments’ inability to meet basic services and to provide clean and safe drinking water.

“The government’s lack of communication and information on the quality of our drinking water exacerbates people’s frustration. Through WaterCAN, we are building a network of citizen science activists to become water guardians and stewards to monitor and be empowered to better understand their water rights,” Adam said.

LACK OF COMMUNICATION ON THE QUALITY OF OUR DRINKING WATER EXACERBATES PEOPLE’S FRUSTRATION

Ferrial Adam WaterCAN manager