While the plight of hundreds of thousands of people in the country not having access to clean water and sanitation on a daily basis is common knowledge South Africa has reached a new and unforeseen dilemma – poor service delivery to private and educational structures.

Recently Rhodes University was on the brink of closing its doors as 11 of its residences, and 1 000 students, were without water for 10 days. Inadvertently the university became the latest victim of South Africa’s flailing infrastructure.

South Africa’s existing infrastructure is in dire straits. Many road, power, and particularly water installations are potentially doomed as they are being neglected through a massive and unrelenting maintenance backlog. Coupled with ineffective revenue stream for public sector entities outside of the fiscal the news can only get worse when the following facts and figures are considered:

In February this year the Water Research Commission reported that almost half of all South African water was stolen, wasted or leaking away. It is estimated that Gauteng municipalities alone collectively lost about 481-million kilolitres of water in 2012, working out to roughly a R7,8 billion loss in revenue.

South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) CEO, Nazir Ali, stated last year that the backlog for road maintenance alone was R149 billion. Conservative estimates indicate that South Africa needs R80 billion a year to sustain the existing road network in stark comparison to the current spend of R36 billion. In addition almost 80% of the South Africa’s road network is older than a typical design lifespan of 20 years.

In the last 12 month’s South Africa’s power woes have been highlighted as well. The backlog of power distribution, maintenance and rehabilitation has increased by R2,5 billion a year in recent years – with a current total valued at R35 million.