The residents of the Emalahleni Local Municipality are affected by water and power outages on a daily basis, while tariffs keep climbing and the Municipality’s financial position keeps declining.
The Municipality issues no proactive notifications of service disruptions. Residents are left in the dark – literally and figuratively – unable to plan their daily lives, business operations or the care of medically vulnerable people.
The scale of the crisis is shocking:
• Nearly 50% of the town’s water is lost as a result of leakages, ageing pipes and illegal connections.
• Reservoirs regularly run dry, water pressure is often too low or the supply stops completely. Residents also complain of dirty, cloudy tap water.
• The sewerage system is inadequate to handle the load. Consequently, raw sewage flows into streets and even through residents’ properties.
• In November 2025, the Mpumalanga High Court fined the Municipality R650 million for years of dumping raw sewage into rivers – R500 million of this ought be used for rehabilitation.
• Approximately one third of the Municipality’s electricity is lost because of old transformers, meter tampering and vandalism.
• The Municipality already owes Eskom more than R12 billion, while only about half of residents pay their utility bills.
• Refuse removal services have collapsed in many areas, leaving garbage bags lying in the streets for weeks on end.
These failures violate residents’ constitutional right to clean water, a healthy environment and fair service delivery.
The Freedom Front Plus (VF Plus) has already lodged a formal complaint with the Municipal Manager, Humphrey Sizwe Mayisela. The party demands, among other things, the following: that infrastructure be urgently stabilised, the implementation of a proper communication protocol and the tabling of a detailed action plan with specific timelines.
The only way to restore service delivery in Emalahleni, however, is to oust the ANC at the polls and elect a new administration that truly has every resident’s best interests at heart.
The Freedom Front Plus offers a viable alternative of accountable governance, transparent financial management, and dedicated service delivery that safeguards residents’ right to clean water, reliable electricity supply and a healthy environment.
