{"id":55265,"date":"2026-04-07T06:29:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T06:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/?p=55265"},"modified":"2026-04-07T06:29:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T06:29:27","slug":"2026-04-07-ramateu-monyokolo-green-drop-report-must-mark-the-end-of-complacency-in-sas-water-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/2026\/04\/07\/2026-04-07-ramateu-monyokolo-green-drop-report-must-mark-the-end-of-complacency-in-sas-water-sector\/","title":{"rendered":"RAMATEU MONYOKOLO | Green Drop report must mark the end of complacency in SA\u2019s water sector"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Africa tv video display -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"3579572842\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\">\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The release of the Green Drop Report 2025 must be understood for what it is. It is not another technical publication to be filed away and not another ritual of compliance. It is a national reckoning. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The latest Green Drop Report lays bare the condition of wastewater management in the country. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">With clarity and hard evidence, it reveals how well, and how poorly, we are protecting our rivers, safeguarding public health, preserving ecological systems and fulfilling our constitutional obligations to provide dignified, safe and sustainable water and sanitation services. That truth is deeply uncomfortable and demands accountability.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The 2025 Green Drop assessment audited 848 wastewater treatment systems for the 2023\/2024 municipal financial year. Compared with the 2022 report, the findings point to regression where progress was urgently needed. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The proportion of wastewater systems in a critical state has increased from 39% in 2022 to 47% in 2025. At the same time, systems performing at excellent or good levels have dropped from 14% to only 8%. Only 14 Green Drop certifications were achieved, down from 22 in 2022. This is not a marginal decline but a warning signal flashing red.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The complementary Blue Drop and No Drop progress assessments reinforce this picture. While drinking water quality shows modest improvement nationally, too many systems remain in the high-risk and critical-risk categories. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Non-revenue water has stabilised at an unacceptable 47.3%. Nearly half the water entering municipal systems is not generating revenue because it is lost through leaks, theft, poor metering or weak billing and collection systems. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">These failures have direct consequences. They mean polluted rivers, contaminated catchments, overwhelmed wastewater works, compromised raw water sources, failing reticulation systems, rising treatment costs, mounting municipal debt and declining public trust. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">They mean catchment management agencies are forced to manage increasingly degraded water resources. They mean water boards must continue supplying bulk water into municipal systems that are operationally weak, financially unstable and often unable to recover revenue. They mean communities pay the price in health, dignity and lost economic opportunity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Transparency is not optional in a sector as vital as water. Credible data is the foundation of sound governance. Without transparency, there can be no accountability. Without accountability, there can be no meaningful reform. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">But transparency alone is not enough. These reports must trigger action and lead to corrective plans, institutional reforms, operational discipline and effective consequence management. They must force every actor in the water value chain to confront their responsibilities honestly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Municipalities are at the frontline of service delivery. They must maintain infrastructure, appoint qualified technical staff, improve billing and revenue collection and treat asset management as a core governance function rather than an afterthought. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Crucially, water and sanitation revenue must be ring-fenced and reinvested into operations, maintenance, refurbishment and system expansion. If revenue generated by water and sanitation services is diverted elsewhere, infrastructure decay becomes inevitable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Provincial governments must exercise stronger oversight, support distressed municipalities and ensure co-operative governance mechanisms are functional rather than ceremonial. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The national government must continue to regulate firmly, intervene where failure persists, align grants with performance, and accelerate legislative reforms that give the regulator sharper teeth. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Ultimately, South Africa requires an independent water and sanitation regulator with the authority, credibility and enforcement powers necessary to uphold standards consistently in the sector.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Water boards must remain financially and operationally resilient while deepening their support role to municipalities, especially where local capacity has collapsed. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">In the short- to medium-term, this requires National Treasury buy-in through targeted funding that enables the minister of water and sanitation to issue section 63 interventions to water boards so they can support regressing municipalities identified in the Green Drop, Blue Drop and No Drop reports. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">We must also be frank about the structural pressures in the value chain. Ageing infrastructure, chronic underinvestment in refurbishment and maintenance, capacity constraints, weak governance, vandalism, criminality and municipal financial instability are not isolated problems. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">They reinforce one another. Rising non-revenue water contributes to weak municipal finances. Weak finances fuel unpaid debt to water boards, now hovering around R28bn. That debt undermines the sustainability of bulk supply institutions, which in turn threatens the entire system. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">In other words, dysfunction in one part of the chain eventually becomes dysfunction for all. That is why the Association of Water and Sanitation Institutions of South Africa (Awsisa) has consistently argued South Africa must move beyond fragmented responses. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The sector requires institutional coherence, sharper regulation, professionalisation and a more effective delivery model. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">This imperative was reinforced at the Presidential Water and Sanitation Indaba and further affirmed through the Awsisa Africa and Global South Water and Sanitation resolution, which recognised the critical importance of stronger partnerships between water boards, municipalities and the private sector. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">South Africa must embrace fit-for-purpose delivery models, including public-public partnerships through special purpose vehicles, concessions, and public-private partnerships. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">These are pragmatic instruments for rescuing a stressed sector. What is required is enabling legislation to make these alternative delivery models lawful, practical and scalable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Our call is clear. First, establish an independent water and sanitation regulator. Second, professionalise the sector. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Water and sanitation systems cannot be run sustainably without engineers, process controllers, scientists, artisans, financial managers and accountable executives who are properly trained, retained and empowered. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">In this regard, Awsisa has partnered with Stellenbosch University, the Energy and Water Seta, and the Water Institute of Southern Africa to advance professionalisation and technical capacitation in the sector. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Third, we must deepen collaboration in the value chain, including with civil society and the private sector. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Fourth, we should establish an anti-pollution fund to support targeted interventions against contamination of water resources. Fifth, we must treat the protection of water infrastructure as a national priority by confronting vandalism, encroachment, theft and organised criminality with far greater urgency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Presidential Water Crisis Committee, chaired by President Cyril Ramaphosa, is an important intervention. However, for it to succeed, it must consult with the entire water sector to identify quick wins and implement urgent turnaround measures. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">We must also rethink water security in the context of a water-scarce country. Water reclamation and reuse must move from the margins to the mainstream of planning, financing and infrastructure investment. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Treated wastewater is not merely waste to be disposed of but a strategic resource that can strengthen resilience, reduce pressure on freshwater systems and improve long-term water security.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Above all, persistent non-compliance, negligence, maladministration and corruption must carry consequences. Equally, excellence must be recognised, rewarded and replicated. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Green Drop Report 2025 must therefore become a turning point. It must mark the end of complacency, the end of denial and the end of fragmented accountability. It must usher in a new ethic in the water sector which is grounded in transparency, competence, consequence and service.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">South Africa can reverse this decline. But it will not happen through reports alone. It will happen when every institution in the value chain accepts that water security is a shared national responsibility.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\"><i>\u2014 Monyokolo is chairperson of Rand Water and Awsisa.<\/i><\/p>\n<hr class=\"c-divider\"\/><\/div>\n<p><script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Africa tv video display -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"3579572842\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\">\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n#RAMATEU #MONYOKOLO #Green #Drop #report #mark #complacency #SAs #water #sector<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The release of the Green Drop Report 2025 must be understood for what it is. It is not another technical&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mzansi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55265"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55267,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55265\/revisions\/55267"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}