Debt owed to water boards as of June 2025 is R25.1 billion: Mashatile

Deputy President Paul Mashatile

Government says it does not rule out any possibility of applying debt collection for water from municipalities on a punitive scale to those who owe the water boards.

While answering questions before the National Council of Provinces in Parliament on Thursday, Deputy President Paul Mashatile said the majority of the country’s municipalities are in arrears.

He says the Minister of Water and Sanitation, Pemmy Majodina, has made a call to individual municipalities to honour their obligations.

“As of June 2025, the collective debt owed to water boards across the country stands at R25.1 billion. And to address this, Honourable Chairperson, the Minister of Water and Sanitation has made a call to affected municipalities to make regular payments on current accounts for undisputed debt. There are instances that municipalities will dispute.”

He further added, “We do not want to be punitive but where we realised that municipalities are not paying water boards and yet they are collecting revenue. That’s where that measure is being used to slice their budgets. But we are looking at mechanisms to look at the problem holistically because as I said it won’t make sense for us to go to a municipality, let Mangaung slice their budget when in fact there is a bigger problem of infrastructure and old pipes and all that. So our intervention is going to be very comprehensive to ensure that we’re not seen as being punitive.”

[WATCH] Today I appeared in the National Council of Provinces to answer questions from members of Parliament in Cape Town. #MashatileQandA #MashatileNCOP #ExecutiveAccountability #PaulMashatile pic.twitter.com/N7zhsxPKIV

— Paul Mashatile🇿🇦 (@PMashatile) September 11, 2025