When Infrastructure Fails, Society Pays: Engineering Lessons from Midrand and Gqeberha Water Crisis
- A significant R400-billion is needed to address the maintenance backlog of water and sanitation infrastructure in the country’s worst-performing municipalities, of which 105 are considered critical or poor in the Blue, Green and No Drop audit reports of municipal drinking water and wastewater systems.
- In fact, 47% of municipal water in South Africa is currently lost due to what’s termed as “non-revenue water”, because of leaking pipes, unreliable or non-existent water meters, illegal connections, as well as poor billing and revenue collection, according to the No Drop report, published in 2022 and 2023 by the Department of Water and Sanitation.
February 2026: The ongoing water disruptions affecting parts of Midrand (Gauteng) and Gqeberha (Eastern Cape) have often been described as isolated incidents, the result of power failures, pipe bursts, or operational setbacks. Yet from an engineering perspective, these events point to something more fundamental. They are not sudden or unpredictable failures, but the foreseeable outcome of infrastructure systems that have been operating for years under sustained stress, without adequate maintenance, renewal, or technical oversight.
The 2022 / 2023 Blue Drop report, which assessed the quality of drinking water, found that almost half (46%) of the drinking water in municipal water supply systems does not comply with microbiological standards, an increase from 5% in 2014 (when audits were previously published). There has been significant deterioration in municipal water services in South Africa since the audits were previously published in 2012 and 2013.
The Green, Blue and No Drop reports, published in 2022 and 2023, are regulatory mechanisms the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) uses to monitor the quality and service delivery of water and sanitation services by municipalities, alongside water conservation and demand management.
As South Africa anticipates President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) 2026 on February 12, water infrastructure is expected to feature prominently amid escalating crises like those in Midrand and Gqeberha, where 47% non-revenue water losses from leaks, poor metering, and illegal connections exacerbate a R400-billion maintenance backlog in 105 failing municipalities.
Currently in Midrand, extended water outages followed a sequence well known to engineers: a power interruption at a bulk water treatment facility, delayed recovery of pumping capacity, and reservoirs unable to stabilise supply in a densely populated, high-demand area. While communities experience this as an abrupt service failure, engineers recognise it as a system with limited redundancy, one that has little tolerance for disruption.
“Water infrastructure functions as an integrated system,” says Ms Sekadi Phayane-Shakhane, Chief Executive Officer at SAICE. “When that system is properly maintained, it can absorb shocks and recover quickly. When assets are ageing and maintenance is deferred, even a single disruption can escalate into a prolonged crisis. What we are seeing in Midrand reflects cumulative stress rather than an unexpected breakdown.”
SAICE hopes SONA 2026 will include concrete funding commitments to routine and preventative maintenance, renewal of ageing pipes, leak repairs, and asset management, building on SONA 2025’s ring-fencing pledges and R23 billion Infrastructure Fund allocation, to avert further service collapses and ensure resilient systems.
In Gqeberha, the collapse of key electricity transmission infrastructure triggered a cascading failure that extended beyond power supply into water distribution and sanitation. Pump stations, treatment works, and reservoirs depend on continuous electrical input. When that stability is lost, water security deteriorates rapidly, with immediate consequences for households, healthcare facilities, and local businesses.
“The interdependency between electricity and water infrastructure is not theoretical; it is a daily operational reality,” notes the SAICE Water Division. “When electrical supply becomes unreliable, water systems are among the first to feel the impact. If those systems are already operating close to their limits, recovery is slow and increasingly complex.”
“We’ve estimated that the backlog for water services infrastructure, not only in terms of fixing what’s broken, but also routine or preventative maintenance, is about R400-billion,” shares Dr Sean Phillips, Director-General at the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS).
Although Midrand and Gqeberha differ in geography and institutional structure, the underlying pattern is the same. Infrastructure is ageing while demand continues to rise. Maintenance budgets are under pressure. Skilled technical capacity within public institutions has steadily declined. Over time, these factors produce systems that appear functional until they are tested.
Infrastructure rarely fails without warning. Pipes leak before they rupture. Towers corrode before they collapse. Pump efficiency degrades long before systems shut down entirely. The challenge arises when these warning signs are not systematically identified, recorded, and addressed through professional asset management.
“What is most concerning is that many failures remain unseen until they become crises, because reliable, up‑to‑date asset condition data is missing in many municipalities,” says Mr Tauqeer Ahmed, Chairperson of the SAICE Knowledge Trailblazer Committee. “Without regular, professional inspections and condition assessments by registered practitioners, decisions default to reaction rather than planning. Emergency call‑outs replace scheduled renewal, and risk accumulates quietly in the system. This is compounded by insufficient technical staff and resources to do inspections and maintenance planning, and by inadequate funding and weak execution of maintenance programmes. If we don’t do routine maintenance today, we will pay far more tomorrow in emergency repairs and premature replacements.”
These capacity gaps are amplified by repairs‑and‑maintenance spending below the National Treasury ~8% benchmark of the carrying value of municipal assets, a pattern the Auditor‑General repeatedly flags through underspending and project delays.
Despite the commitment of R23 billion secured by the Infrastructure Fund for seven new large water infrastructure projects in SONA 2025, there is a dire thirst for investment in water services infrastructure to ensure broken infrastructure is fixed and there is budget for future routine and preventative maintenance.
South Africa’s water sector illustrates this vulnerability clearly. Large volumes of treated water are lost through leaks and pipe failures before reaching consumers, placing unnecessary strain on treatment plants and pumping systems. When power disruptions occur as they increasingly do, recovery is slower because networks are already operating close to their design thresholds.
It is important to be precise. Failures of this nature are not inevitable, nor are they primarily driven by extraordinary weather events or unforeseeable technical complexity. From an engineering standpoint, they are governance and management outcomes. Systems that are properly maintained, adequately funded, and led by competent technical professionals demonstrate resilience, even under severe stress.
“Public infrastructure is a long-term social asset,” adds Ms Phayane-Shakhane. “It is designed to serve communities across generations, not electoral cycles. When maintenance is deferred or professional capacity is weakened, the consequences are not immediate, but they are inevitable.”
SAICE raises these issues not to assign blame, but to reaffirm a foundational engineering principle: infrastructure performance reflects institutional choices made over time. Decisions about inspections, maintenance funding, skills retention, and technical leadership accumulate quietly until a system reaches its breaking point.
The situations in Midrand and Gqeberha should therefore be treated as inflection points. They demonstrate, in practical terms, the cost of under-investing in asset management and technical governance. They also highlight the necessity of restoring engineering judgement to the centre of infrastructure decision-making where risk is anticipated, renewal is planned, and resilience is deliberately built into essential services.
“South Africa has the technical expertise to manage infrastructure sustainably, from ECSA‑registered professionals to innovators using automation and digital twins,” concludes Mr Ahmed. “The task now is to bring this capability into the heart of public institutions, so that evidence, accountability, and long‑term planning are applied consistently. When we do, we replace emergency repairs with planned reliability.”
Water security is not only a technical issue; it is a measure of institutional maturity. The lessons from Midrand and Gqeberha are clear, grounded in engineering fact, and increasingly difficult to ignore. The question now is whether those lessons are acted upon before the next system failure makes them unavoidable.
Although the government’s commitment to resolving the water challenges and investing in infrastructure are steps in the right direction, the country’s crisis needs concerted collaborative efforts across the board before the water and infrastructure maintenance situation can truly be resolved.
For more information, visit https://saice.org.za
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About SAICE
The South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE) is a learned society and voluntary organisation that acts as a catalyst for innovation and good practice in the development of the civil engineering profession. SAICE has a membership base in excess of 15 000 civil engineering professionals and is involved in the advancement of the built environment and professional development of civil engineering professionals.