Nearly 1 in 5 Eastern Cape households have no water

Almost 20% of all residents in the Eastern Cape do not have access to clean drinking water. 

This is according to the Minister of Water and Sanitation (DWS), Pemmy Majodina, who was responding to a parliamentary inquiry from Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) MP Lilian Managa. 

According to the department’s Water Services Knowledge System, of 1,866,388 households in the province, 340,818 do not have access to clean drinking water.

This amounts to 18%, the highest percentage of all South African provinces. The province with the second-highest percentage of households without drinking water is Limpopo, with 14%. 

This amounts to 272,570 of Limpopo’s 1,883,948 households. Mpumalanga recorded that 9% of households lacked access to drinking water, or 8,102 households. 

The remaining South African provinces recorded that less than 4% of households lacked access to drinking water, amounting to a national total of 1,124,025 of 18,692,514 households. 

The national percentage of those without water access is 6%, well below the Eastern Cape’s staggering figure. 

The Eastern Cape has long struggled to provide residents with drinking water. In the Ndlambe municipality in November, residents told SABC that their struggle to access water began a decade ago. 

The locals attribute the ongoing issue to ageing infrastructure and a lack of maintenance of pipelines. The Ndlambe municipality, however, claimed that drought has had the biggest impact. 

“South Africa is a water-scarce country. The country has an average rainfall of 465 mm, which is half the world’s average, and there is also a very high evaporation rate,” the DWS said. 

The Department reported that the percentage of households in the Eastern Cape with access to clean drinking water increased by 23 percentage points between 2002 and 2012, but access has declined since then. 

Access to clean water for Eastern Cape households dropped by 12 percentage points by 2024. 

Decades of suffering

The Democratic Alliance (DA) said in January 2025 that it had frequently warned that a catastrophic water crisis was coming to Eastern Cape communities, but that its warnings fell on deaf ears. 

“In Komani, the situation grows more dire by the day. Residents have been left without water for weeks, devastating local businesses and families,” DA MPL Vicky Knoetze said. 

She added that residents in Makana have endured weeks without water, forcing school and university closures, and people in Cradock queue for hours for water from tankers that frequently fail to arrive. 

In Alfred Nzo District, residents have been forced to rely on contaminated wells and rivers that they share with animals, even though some areas have had water infrastructure installed. 

The Auditor General’s report on Buffalo City for 2023/2024 flagged severe water and sanitation failures, with only three of the municipality’s 15 wastewater treatment works functional. 

“These are not isolated incidents, but symptoms of a profound crisis born of neglect, incompetence and a complete lack of urgency from those responsible for delivering services,” Knoetze said. 

In November 2025, a group of Eastern Cape Families in Centane approached the Mthatha High Court to force the government to provide them with water.

In their application, they argued that the Amathole District Municipality has “failed dismally” to ensure that they have access to “sufficient potable water.”

The residents said they are forced to walk for hours to reach rivers where they share water with cattle and other animals. “This situation has existed for years” they said in their court papers. 

The Ministry of Water and Sanitation argued in the case that neither the Constitution, nor the Water Services Act, obliges it to provide residents with water. 

Majodina said it is the responsibility of the Premier and the Amathole municipality to provide the water.

The families referred to the Water Services Act, in which it is written that “there is a duty on all spheres of Government to ensure that water supply services and sanitation services are provided in a manner which is efficient, equitable and sustainable”

Last month, villages outside Willowvale in the Eastern Cape were given running water for the first time in years when the municipality installed taps. However, by 5 December, GroundUp visited and reported that the taps had already run dry. 

Non-profit organisations, including Gift of the Givers, have stepped in to deliver water to communities like Makhanda and Komani.

Chapter 2 of the Constitution states that all South Africans have the right to have access to sufficient food and water.