R72 million debt stalls 22 water projects in South Africa’s richest city

The City of Johannesburg currently has 22 water infrastructure projects delayed due to over R72 million in outstanding payments to contractors.

This is according to Minister of Water and Sanitation Pemmy Majodina, who was responding to a written question from DA Member of Parliament (MP) Stephen Moore.

Majodina pointed to 29 infrastructure projects by Johannesburg Water that have been delayed due to non-payment over the past three financial years.

As of 30 June 2025, the outstanding amounts owed to contractors totalled R115.97 million. One company, Mapitsi Civil Works, accounted for more than a third (R41.5 million) of this.

These arrears decreased to R72.47 million as of 30 September 2025, with contractors for seven of the projects being fully repaid by this point.

However, this leaves 22 still yet to be compensated by the metro, leading to significant delays in the completion of the projects and further worsening the city’s ongoing water crisis.

On top of this, the metro also accrued additional debt on seven of the projects.

The most significant amount owed to a contractor at the end of September is just over R29 million for the upgrade of the Northern Works Wastewater Treatment Works (WWTW) Unit 5, specifically Module 2.

As of 30 June this year, the project’s arrears stood at R6.5 million, indicating a significant increase since then.

Icon Construction, which is the contractor owed for the project, was owed an additional R2.2 million for the “Erand Tower and Pumpstation” project, bringing the total amount owed to it to over R31 million.

Despite this, Johannesburg Water appears to have issued another tender for this project on 4 August 2025, which closed on 12 August.

The tender’s description is “Northern Wastewater Treatment Works (NWWTW): expansion of capacity Unit 5 – installation of mechanical and electrical equipment.”

Other significant amounts include R8.1 million owed for the refurbishment of the Hector Norris Water Pumpstation and R7.4 million for the supply and installation of prepayment water meters in Cosmo City.

Newsday has contacted the City of Johannesburg for comment, which will be added once received.

According to the Auditor-General of South Africa’s 2023/24 assessment of the metro, it takes an average of 311 days to pay creditors. This is more than 10 times longer than the standard 30 days.

While the AGSA found that the metro owed more than it owned, it also said that 92% of the metro’s debt is unlikely to be recovered.

When it came to infrastructure maintenance, it was found that the city only spent R228.76 million on repairs, or 0.5% of the value of its property, plant and equipment. This is significantly lower than the National Treasury norm of 8%.

Joburg water crisis

Specific neighbourhoods in the city have been experiencing week-long outages, with areas such as Westbury, Ebony Park and parts of Soweto enduring dry taps for close to a month.

Even Sandton, one of the wealthiest areas on the continent, faced a week-long outage in August.

WaterCAN’s Dr Ferrial Adam recently told Newsday that “the majority of dry taps we see today are not caused by natural scarcity but by governance failures.”

“Billions have been spent on upgrades that never materialised or were riddled with corruption,” said Adam.

“The problem is less about not having water than not managing water.” “Without competent governance, no amount of rainfall or dam storage will translate into reliable taps.”

Similarly, water expert Dr Anthony Turton told Newsday that “there is a 100% correlation with governance failure, as nowhere in South Africa do we have an absolute water scarcity.”

“Taps are dry because municipalities have failed for a variety of reasons, including the mismanagement of funds, inability to collect revenues, lack of ring-fencing for finances and the loss of technical skills due to purges.”