South Africa is heading towards the formation of a state-owned enterprise for water which is expected to be established in the first half of 2025 – with some skeptical about its promised effectiveness.
According to the Department of Water and Sanitation , the sweeping reforms are intended to attract private investment, enforce accountability for non-performance, and remedy a crisis that has caused outages and poor water quality across areas nationwide. Regardless, during the transition from the sixth administration to the seventh, there was uncertainty about whether these plans to create a water agency would materialise in the new administration.
Most of this is raised by DWS’s entity, the Trans Caledon Tunnel Authority , based on guarantees from the National Treasury, however the value of guarantees is said to be limited.,” said Majodina.