Every day, Mariane Adams has to jump over a pool of stagnant water to get to the front gate of her home in Rosedale, Upington. She says despite lodging several complaints with the Dawid Kruiper Local Municipality, the leak took weeks to be fixed.

“We can’t do this any longer … The children from the community play here. It’s not healthy,” said Adams.

Resident Rosie Brandt said that for years rubbish dumped outside her home is rarely cleaned.

“People are fed up … We just want them to clean up,” said Brandt.

She also said water has been flowing from a burst pipe in her street for weeks.

Water losses

Upington, the largest town in Dawid Kruiper municipality, is situated on the edge of the Kalahari Desert with an arid climate prone to droughts. Yet the municipality is failing to promptly fix burst pipes and other water leaks.

In the 2024/25 annual report, the municipality acknowledged that its yearly water losses were “unjustifiably too high” and blamed “poor systems to manage water”.

Each year, the municipality has lost nearly half of its drinking water. In 2023/24, it had 48% water losses and 43% in 2024/2025.

The water and sanitation department did not respond to our questions.

We also contacted Dawid Kruiper’s spokesperson Patrick Williams on 16 July, and a reminder was sent on 21 July, but he has not responded.

Maladministration

The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) is investigating “allegations of serious maladministration” in the municipality involving 24 contracts.

In a recent municipal finance management oversight report, tabled before the Northern Cape Provincial Legislature, the Joint Committee highlighted serious problems with “persistent infrastructure and service delivery pressures, particularly in water and sanitation, including significant wastewater upgrade requirements and drought vulnerability”.

The municipality had told the committee that 70% of reported losses were also due to “poor metering systems, unmetered consumption and flat-rate billing arrangements rather than confirmed physical losses only”.

At an inquiry by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) into service delivery in Northern Cape municipalities in October 2025, Dawid Kruiper municipal manager Elias Ntoba acknowledged that water losses were having a negative impact on its ability to supply drinking water.

Regarding sewage spills, Ntoba told the SAHRC that the issue “used to be a nightmare for the municipality” but it is being addressed.

He said the regular blockages were due to businesses depositing fats and clogging up the system.

Ntoba said the municipality has plans to upgrade the infrastructure.

Wastewater and pollution

During the SAHRC inquiry, complaints were raised about frequent water interruptions, overflowing manholes, and pollution in the Orange River.

Driving through Upington recently, GroundUp came across several overflowing manholes in the industrial area and the centre of town. Many of these flow into stormwater drains and a canal that eventually leads to the Orange River.

In one area, where an overflowing manhole was gushing, DA councillor Henk Opperman told GroundUp that businesses had complained about the foul smell. He said the municipality took very long to do maintenance and fix blockages and burst pipes.

According to the 2024 Green Drop report, there were major concerns regarding the pollution of the Orange River from the Upington-Kameelmond Wastewater Treatment Works (WWTW).

According to the report, Upington WWTW, which discharges into the Orange River, had a high critical risk rating of nearly 70%, with “poor” effluent quality coming from the plant.

In 2024, Water and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina said, in a parliamentary response, that “administrative enforcement action” was taken against the municipality for “raw sewage from burst pipes and manholes flowing into Orange River” and partially treated wastewater from the WWTW. The department is monitoring compliance, she said at the time.

Majodina said pollution into the Orange River was curbed through several measures, including the upgrading of sewer pumps and pump stations, as well as the refurbishment of the plant. “These measures have significantly improved the quality of effluent released from the Kameelmond WWTW into the Orange River,” said Majodina.

Acting technical manager Mduduzi Mganga, at the inquiry last year, said the municipality installed a containment boom to further prevent sewage from flowing directly into the river.

He explained that refurbishments to the Upington-Kameelmond Wastewater Treatment Works had been done, addressing its Green Drop “critical risk” rating.

The municipality plans to upgrade the WWTW to address its insufficient capacity caused by population growth in Upington.

SIU investigates

In the municipal oversight report, the joint committee also raised concerns about the municipality’s unfilled posts, with 419 out of 1,372 remaining vacant. The Auditor-General of South Africa indicated that nearly 40% of these vacancies were in the municipality’s finance department.

The municipality received an unqualified audit with findings for 2024/25.

The municipality is also under investigation by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) about several dodgy contracts.

In 2024, the SIU announced it is looking into “allegations of serious maladministration” in 24 contracts from 2010 to 2024. These contracts include the appointment of security services, construction of a sewerage pump station, construction of streets, procurement of equipment such as a tipper truck and tractor, among others. The SIU raided the municipality’s offices in October 2024.

SIU spokesperson Selby Makgotho recently told GroundUp, “The investigation is still ongoing… A phased approach is being used for the investigation. The first phase is well-advanced, and referrals will be made as soon as possible. The second phase has now begun.”

This article was originally posted on groundup.org.za and is republished here under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here.

Photos: Liezl Human