Poor upkeep behind water crisis, civil engineers say

Civil engineers have welcomed President Cyril Ramaphosa’s acknowledgment of thewater crisisaffecting many parts of South Africa but warn that the real challenge lies in implementation at municipal level. “We, as theSouth African Institution of Civil Engineering(Saice), are very encouraged that thewater crisishas received attention at the highest level in the president’s State of the Nation address,” said Zweli Mahlangu, the chairperson of Saice’s water division and a civil engineer with more than 20 years’ experience in the private sector. “But the challenge is implementation, where water gets lost between supply and the end user.

“With that now receiving attention in Sona, we expect meaningful change in ensuring water reaches people where it is needed.” In his State of the Nation address (Sona) earlier this month, Ramaphosapromised urgent action to tackle the water crisis, pledging to personally chair a national water crisis committee to coordinate interventions and hold failing municipalities accountable. He warned that municipal managers could face criminal charges for failing to provide basic water services. Engineers point to severe, localised failures in municipal infrastructure, particularly in metrossuch as Johannesburg, that are leaving residents without reliable water supply and exposing the long-term consequences of neglected maintenance.

“As Saice, we represent the engineering profession but our members work across government, municipalities, consulting firms and water boards,” saidAbri Vermeulen, a civil engineer with 35 years’ experience in the water sector and treasurer of Saice’s committee. “We see these problems in our daily work and in our engagement with institutions. It has been a concern for a while but pinpointing exactly where the issues are can be difficult.” While some water outages were caused by sudden breakages, the deeper problem was that water infrastructure had a finite lifespan and much of it had not been replaced in time, Vermeulen said.

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“A water system is designed for a certain lifetime. Typically, a pipeline is designed for 20 years,” he said. “Every 20 years, you must replace it, otherwise it will fail — sometimes quite spectacularly.” Municipal networks were built in phases over decades, so replacement needs to be continuous.

“Utilities, whether a water board or a municipality, should replace a certain percentage of their network every year, around 2% to 5%. As long as that happens, everything works well and no one notices.”

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