All eyes on SONA for solutions to SA’s water challenges

The escalation of South Africa’s water crisis to the level of a national disaster is expected to be one of the key highlights of the 2026 State of the Nation Address (SONA).

In an election year, the fact that many municipalities are unable to provide their communities with adequate water supplies is likely to be a key consideration for the electorate.

Interventions such as the review of the white paper on local government, including re-looking the funding model of local authorities, as well as ensuring that infrastructure meant to provide essential services are well maintained.

One year on from the declaration of the water crisis as a government priority, we take a look at the progress that has been made.

Ring fencing of water, electricity and fixing infrastructure in local government were one of the key priority areas of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s SONA speech last year.

“Starting this year, we will work with our municipalities to establish professionally managed, ring fenced utilities for water and electricity services to ensure that there is adequate investment and maintenance,” said President Ramaphosa.

However a year later, many municipalities across the country are facing water shortages. Poor water infrastructure, not payment and illegal water connections pose service delivery challenges.

VIDEO | SONA 2026 | All eyes on SONA for solutions to SA’s water challenges:

Water issue

The Minister of Water and Sanitation, Pemmy Majodina says, “if we allow municipalities to do as they wish with water sales and use the money for anything other than water, then we are not going to resolve the water issue.”

“So our next move will be that we have to monitor the water sales that is concerned for water infrastructure. The third one, we are assisting municipalities and there’s a lot of municipalities that are coming forth that they want to have a social purpose vehicle where water will be partnership with the private sector because the business community is suffering a lot when there’s no water. But also we are encouraging municipalities to use concessions. We have that in Mbombela. Mbombela is doing very well in water because water is managed by an agent, not by them,” she explains.

Crippling municipalities

In a bid to overhaul the system that has been labelled as crippling municipalities, government is reviewing the white paper on local government.

President Cyril Ramaphosa says, “Many of the challenges in municipalities arise from the design of our local government system. We will therefore undertake extensive consultation to develop an updated extensive consultation to develop an updated white paper on local government to outline a modern and fit-for-purpose local government system. We will review the funding model for municipalities as many of them do not have a viable and sustainable revenue base”

A task team comprising of officials from COGTA and National Treasury has since been established to review the funding model of local government.

Minister of COGTA Velenkosini Hlabisa adds, “At the heart of the crisis is the resources constraint of many municipalities. The current funding model for local government is unsustainable and perpetuates inequality between the rich and the poor. The new funding model is a must, one that considers each municipality’s unique needs and challenges and provides a more equitable distribution of resources.”

COGTA says it is still on schedule to submit an updated and reviewed white paper on local government to cabinet in March 2026. 266 submissions have been made so far.

Deputy Minister of the COGTA, Dickson Masemola says,  “So we’re still quite certain that all is on track. Because if we don’t meet those deadline, that process will have serious implications, not only for us, because all the good intentions, all the endeavors want to actually undertake very vigorously and aggressively. So for the system to be repositioned, it will mean that those matters will de deferred. And we cannot afford at this point in time any possible deference of major policy positions required to sharpen the tools of analysis, including the areas of work administratively and politically of our municipalities.”

Interventions that will be announced by the President on Thursday are aimed resuscitating the country’s ailing local authorities, with a cash injection to these, expected to be announced during the tabling of the 2026 budget later this month.

VIDEO | Expectations ahead of SONA 2026:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wkfF_L9C58