Experts warn of worsening conditions despite Ramaphosa’s intervention

Governance experts say the water crisis in South Africa is likely to worsen despite President Cyril Ramaphosa establishing the National Water Crisis Committee. Despite President Cyril Ramaphosa announcing the establishment of the National Water Crisis, the problem is likely to worsen in the coming years. This is according to governance experts, who said the committee will not resolve the water crisis unless Ramaphosa gets rid of cadre deployment in water management.

South Africa is currently grappling with a severe national water crisis, which escalated around 2015, driven by severe droughts exacerbated by climate change and compounded by failing infrastructure, decades of neglected maintenance, and financial mismanagement. The crisis has led to chronic water shortages in several major metropolitan areas and provinces, with Gauteng, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal being the most heavily affected. Major parts of Johannesburg, including Midrand, Melville and Laudium, have faced prolonged outages (some exceeding 10 days), leading to widespread protests. In KwaZulu-Natal, residents on the South Coast have experienced erratic or non-existent supply since mid-December due to power supply interruptions affecting extraction pumps.