Across South Africa's great cities, water — the most elemental of civic promises — is slipping away before it reaches the people it was meant to serve. More than a third of households endured outages of two days or longer in 2025, not because the rains have failed, but because the pipes that carry water from source to tap are crumbling faster than they are being repaired. In eThekwini and Johannesburg, nearly half of all households live with this uncertainty, caught inside a cycle where neglected infrastructure loses billions of rands worth of water annually — money that might otherwise have b
Durban and Johannesburg face worst water outages as infrastructure crumbles
Millions of South African households lack reliable access to piped water, affecting daily life, health, and economic productivity across major cities.
More than half of eThekwini's water vanishes before it reaches a tap
Mark
So we're talking about a third of the country without reliable water. That's enormous. But the metros are supposed to be better resourced than rural areas. Why are Durban and Johannesburg doing worse than the national average?
Mimi
The metros have more people, more pipes, and older pipes. eThekwini and Johannesburg built their water systems decades ago. Those pipes are now at the end of their lifespan. And the cities haven't kept up with replacement. So you get more failures, more leaks, more outages.
Luke
But we should be careful here. The data shows 44% of eThekwini households reported long outages in 2025. That's one survey. It doesn't tell us if those outages are happening every month or once a year. The duration matters.
Mimi
True. But even if some households only experienced one or two extended outages in the year, that's still a serious problem. You can't plan your life around not knowing if water will come out of your tap.
Mark
The Auditor-General says 61% of eThekwini's water is lost. That's more than half. How is that even possible?
Mimi
Leaks in the pipes, mostly. Old infrastructure just breaks down. But also illegal connections—people tapping into the system without paying. And water that's delivered but never billed, so the city doesn't even know it's gone.
Luke
The 61% figure comes from the Auditor-General's report, so it's credible. But we should note that Cape Town's loss is about 25%, according to the Department of Water and Sanitation. That's a huge difference. It suggests that some cities are managing their infrastructure better than others.
Mark
So why isn't Johannesburg doing as badly as eThekwini if they're both old cities?
Mimi
We don't have a breakdown of why Johannesburg is at 40% instead of 44%. The source material doesn't explain that. It could be different pipe ages, different maintenance practices, different population density. We just know the outcome.
Luke
Right. And that's important to say. We know the problem exists. We don't know all the reasons why it's worse in some places than others.
Mark
R8.7 billion in lost water across the metros in one year. That's real money that could fix the problem.
Mimi
Exactly. That's the cost of not maintaining the system. Every year the pipes get older and the losses get bigger.
Le Pouls
- Nearly half of eThekwini's households and 40% of Johannesburg's went without water for two or more consecutive days in 2025 — not an occasional inconvenience, but a recurring feature of daily life.
- South Africa's pipes now lose 47% of all water nationally, nearly double the international benchmark, with eThekwini hemorrhaging 61% through leaks, bursts, and illegal connections before a single paying tap is turned.
- The eight major metros collectively lost close to R8.7 billion worth of water in a single financial year — funds that, had they been recovered, could have financed the very repairs the system so urgently needs.
- Cape Town's 8% outage rate proves that better outcomes are possible within the same country, throwing the failures of other metros into sharp and uncomfortable relief.
- Without a decisive break in the cycle — aging pipes failing more often, losing more water, generating less revenue, leaving less money for repair — water insecurity across South Africa's urban centers is set to deepen.
Across South Africa's great cities, water — the most elemental of civic promises — is slipping away before it reaches the people it was meant to serve. More than a third of households endured outages of two days or longer in 2025, not because the rains have failed, but because the pipes that carry water from source to tap are crumbling faster than they are being repaired. In eThekwini and Johannesburg, nearly half of all households live with this uncertainty, caught inside a cycle where neglected infrastructure loses billions of rands worth of water annually — money that might otherwise have bought the repairs that could have prevented the crisis.
Three-quarters of South African households now have piped water reaching their homes or yards, a figure that speaks to decades of expansion. But the pipes themselves are failing, and the human consequence is blunt: more than one in three households across the country experienced water outages lasting two days or longer in 2025, according to Stats SA's General Household Survey.
The crisis is sharpest in the cities where infrastructure should be most dependable. Among the eight major metros, Cape Town stands apart with only 8% of households reporting extended outages. Elsewhere, the picture is far grimmer — eThekwini at 44%, Johannesburg at 40%, Nelson Mandela Bay at 38%, with Buffalo City, Tshwane, Mangaung, and Ekurhuleni ranging between 22% and 33%.
The underlying cause is infrastructure that has aged past reliable function. Water disappears into cracked pipes, through illegal connections, or simply goes unbilled because tracking systems have broken down. The Auditor-General found that eThekwini loses 61% of its water supply this way. Nationally, non-revenue water climbed from 37% in 2014 to 47% in 2023 — against an international average of roughly 30%.
The financial scale of the failure is staggering. In 2023/24, the eight metros together lost nearly R8.7 billion worth of water — resources that could have funded the repairs and pipe replacements that might have prevented the outages in the first place. Bulk supply constraints, failing pressure management systems, and slow repair times compound the damage further.
The metros are trapped in a self-reinforcing cycle: aging pipes fail more often, losing more water, generating less revenue, leaving less capacity to invest in repair. For millions of households in eThekwini and Johannesburg, the question is no longer whether the infrastructure will fail — it is how much worse conditions will become before the system is seriously rebuilt.
Three-quarters of South African households now have piped water running into their homes or yards. By most measures, that's progress. But the pipes themselves are failing, and the consequence is stark: more than one in three households across the country experienced water outages lasting two days or longer in 2025, according to data from Stats SA's General Household Survey.
The crisis is not evenly distributed. In the eight major metros—the urban centers where infrastructure should be most robust—the problem is severe enough to demand immediate attention. While these cities performed slightly better than the national average of 38%, the variation among them reveals a system under acute stress. Cape Town stands apart, with only 8% of households reporting extended outages. But move east and north, and the picture darkens. In eThekwini, which includes Durban, 44% of households faced prolonged water cuts. Johannesburg followed closely at 40%. Nelson Mandela Bay reported 38%, Buffalo City 33%, Tshwane 31%, Mangaung 24%, and Ekurhuleni 22%.
The root cause is infrastructure that has aged past the point of reliable function. Pipes leak and burst. Water meant for paying customers disappears into the ground or flows through illegal connections before reaching a single tap. In eThekwini, the Auditor-General found that 61% of the city's water supply is lost this way or never billed at all. Cape Town, by contrast, loses about a quarter—still significant, but a fraction of what eThekwini hemorrhages. The Department of Water and Sanitation's figures show the national picture: water loss or non-revenue water rose from 37% in 2014 to 47% in 2023. The international average sits around 30%.
The financial toll is immense. In the 2023/24 financial year alone, the eight metros together lost nearly R8.7 billion worth of water. That is not a theoretical loss. It is money that could have paid for repairs, for new pipes, for the maintenance that might have prevented the outages in the first place. Instead, it flowed away through cracks in aging infrastructure, or was stolen through illegal taps, or simply went unbilled because the systems to track it do not work.
Other factors compound the problem. Bulk water supply—the pipes that carry water from dams and other sources into the cities themselves—faces its own constraints and failures. Pressure management systems that could reduce stress on aging pipes are not functioning as they should. And when pipes do burst, the time it takes to repair them stretches longer than it should, leaving entire neighborhoods without water for days.
The metros are caught in a cycle. Aging pipes fail more often. Each failure means more water lost, more households without service, more pressure on systems already strained. The longer the pipes go without replacement, the worse the problem becomes. For the 44% of eThekwini households now experiencing extended outages, and the 40% in Johannesburg, the question is no longer whether the infrastructure will fail—it is how much worse it will get before the system is rebuilt.
Citations marquantes
In eThekwini, 61% of the city's water is lost to leaks and illegal connections, or is never billed— Auditor-General
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