Excavations continue at the Senteeko Dam in Mpumalanga, as the emergency spillway channel is being expanded to reduce the dam’s capacity. As a government, our primary responsibility is to protect people, livelihoods, and the environment. That duty guided our response to the Senteeko Dam in Mpumalanga, where recent heavy rainfall weakened the structure and necessitated immediate action to reduce the risk to downstream communities.
Engineers and disaster teams have been working around the clock to widen an emergency spillway, lower water levels, and closely monitor the integrity of the dam. These efforts remain ongoing because the risk has not yet passed. Government remains on site and on alert until it does.
Standing at Senteeko Dam today, one sees heavy machinery, technical expertise, and, most importantly, human concern. Farmers worry about their crops and irrigation systems. Officials assess how water would move should the dam fail and disaster teams engage directly with families living downstream on preparedness measures, including evacuation protocols if required.
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While no densely populated towns lie along the projected flood path and no cross-border impacts are anticipated, the presence of farming communities in this corridor makes our responsibility real and immediate. This situation also carries an important message for communities across the country. Building homes, businesses, or infrastructure on floodplains, riverbanks, or directly below dams places lives at risk.
Floodwater does not respect boundaries, and when dams come under pressure, it is often those living in vulnerable locations who face the greatest danger. Communities living downstream of dams must also remain alert to rainfall patterns beyond their immediate surroundings, as flooding can be triggered by heavy rain upstream, far from where people live, but still result in sudden and dangerous surges of water downstream. Beyond community awareness, the situation at Senteeko Dam speaks directly to the responsibilities of private dam owners.
Privately owned dams form part of South Africa’s broader water and safety system. When they fail, the consequences are not private. Water moves through farms, settlements, roads, and ecosystems, affecting everyone and everything in its path.
Ownership, therefore, comes with a legal and moral obligation to maintain dams properly, comply with safety regulations and act before risks escalate. The law is clear. Any dam holding more than 50,000 cubic metres of water and higher than five metres must be registered with the Department of Water and Sanitation’s Dam Safety Office.
Registered dams must undergo regular safety inspections by an Approved Professional Person (APP) every five years. These inspections assess how a dam will perform under extreme rainfall, identify weaknesses, and recommend remedial action before failure becomes a possibility. Where dam owners comply, risks are managed early and quietly.
Where owners neglect maintenance, ignore professional advice, or fail to register their dams, the government will not hesitate to act. The devastating collapse of the Jagersfontein tailings dam in the Free State remains a painful reminder of what happens when accountability is ignored. That tragedy marked a turning point, and the state has since taken a far firmer stance on enforcement. Private ownership does not exempt anyone from responsibility, and failure to act will attract decisive regulatory consequences.
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