South African Communist Party

Statement on the national water crisis

Thursday, 12 February 2026:- The South African Communist Party (SACP) is extremely concerned by the current national water crisis in the country. The taps have been dry for months in several parts of the country and where there has been no constant absence of water the residents have been forced to contend with inconsistent water supply which is equally unacceptable.

The water crisis is not mere momentary interruption but has now become a standing crisis not affecting isolated communities but affects all across the country, with the working class and poor being the most impacted.

Understood historically and within the prism of our unequal socioeconomic conditions in the country, this crisis has had the worst and more enduring impact in the affected working-class and rural communities for a far longer period of time. The lack of water in our communities is as a result of both objective collapse of infrastructure because of its gross mismanagement but also a result of deliberate neglect and manipulation connected to tenderpreneurs and corrupt municipal officials who loot state resources through emergency water provision. The water mafia with water tankers was born and continues to operate and indeed thrive within this framework and environment.

As the SACP, we have repeatedly raised the issue of the collapse of public infrastructure and services, including water supply, as a result of a corrupt managerial class in the local state whose corruption and economic entanglement with tenderpreneurs has left the municipal system in a state of decay.

In addition to this, the government has been advancing a thoroughgoing austerity programme that has led to an increased incapacity of the local state to meet the needs of the people through effective delivery of services. This combination of all these factors has contributed to the crisis we have now come to experience as the people of South Africa.

While everyone deserves an appropriate provision of public services regardless of their location or neighbourhood, it must be said that the communities in the periphery of the big metropolitan cities, working class communities in rural areas and townships, have invariably experienced this crisis for longer with even a greater impact on their lives.

The government at the same time intends to use this crisis to privatise government services as they have already resumed to plan and implement such activities through the so called “Operation Vulindlela”. It is our concern as the SACP that a crisis of this proportion could be used to justify a neoliberal agenda inherently antithetical to the interests of the working class and poor. We reject any and all moves by the GNU to exploit public anxiety regarding the water crisis to disempower them by transferring public institutions to private profit-seeking entities that prioritise their financial gain over development.

The resolution of the water crisis has transcended local concerns and has become a national priority. Water provision is not a matter that can be postponed; it must be addressed immediately. The use of underground water through boreholes is a crucial consideration and option that the government should explore. The repair of water infrastructure should not be used as an excuse when public water supplies are unavailable.

The longer-term solution to the water crisis lies in the strengthening of the local state to provide services by removing the tender system in local government and consolidating state’s ability to plan, intervene and resource the provision of services for which it will be accountable. The use of the private sector in provision of services has proven detrimental to the welfare of the people and can no longer be justified going forward. Additionally, the direct accountability of the actors in the local state is crucial to moving forward in this regard rather than corrupt partnerships with profit seekers. That is the foundational principle upon which the transformational nature of our state was envisioned and therefore ought to be applied.

We call on the communities to continue to demand the correction of the crisis and the restoration of functioning municipalities accountable to the people they serve. We reject the use of this crisis to deepen neoliberalism and the systemic hollowing out of the state through neoliberal measures such as “Operation Vulindlela”.

We further call on the President and cabinet to institute immediate measures to alleviate this crisis across the country and the local state with the view to empower municipalities rather than replace them with tenderpreneurs. We condemn politicians that have downplayed, undermined and sneered at the demands of our people for water provision as tone deaf and reactionary in the worst way possible.

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ISSUED BY THE SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY,
FOUNDED IN 1921 AS THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF SOUTH AFRICA.