The investigation was conducted in terms of section 184 of the Constitution, the South African Human Rights Commission Act 40 of 2013 and section 7.2.5 of the Commission's Complaints Handling Procedures.

The report follows more than three years of complaints, monitoring activities, stakeholder engagements, two subpoena hearings, sworn testimony, documentary evidence and submissions received from residents, government departments, Rhodes University, the Auditor-General of South Africa and other stakeholders. The Commission received more than 30 complaints between 2023 and 2026 relating to prolonged water outages, sewage spillages, sanitation failures and deteriorating infrastructure.

Key Findings

The Commission found that the crisis in Makana is not primarily caused by a lack of available water resources.

Evidence presented to the Commission confirmed that sufficient bulk water resources remain available. Instead, the investigation found that the crisis is largely the result of governance failures, infrastructure deterioration, inadequate maintenance, weak accountability, institutional instability and failures in implementation.

The Commission found:

• Persistent and systemic failures in water and sanitation service delivery.
• Recurring water outages affecting households, schools, healthcare facilities, businesses and vulnerable communities.
• Dysfunctional wastewater treatment infrastructure and recurring sewage spillages.
• Ongoing environmental contamination and risks to public health.
• Continued use of the bucket system in certain communities more than two decades after national eradication programmes commenced.
• Persistent governance failures, financial mismanagement and institutional instability.
• Limited effectiveness of years of provincial and national interventions aimed at restoring service delivery.
• Ongoing violations of constitutional rights.

The Commission further found that the cumulative effect of these failures has resulted in infringements of:

• The right of access to sufficient water;
• The right to human dignity;
• The right to an environment not harmful to health or well-being; and
• The rights of children.

Years of Intervention Have Failed

A central finding of the report is that Makana has already been the subject of extensive support and intervention measures over many years.

These interventions included technical secondments, emergency stabilisation measures, infrastructure funding, governance oversight, regulatory directives, Auditor-General escalation processes, SIU investigations and a mandatory Financial Recovery Plan implemented in terms of section 139(5) of the Constitution. Despite these interventions, water and sanitation failures have persisted.

The Commission concludes that ordinary support and cooperative governance measures have not produced sustained institutional reform or stable constitutional compliance.

SAHRC Recommends Escalated Intervention

Having regard to the prolonged nature of the crisis and the failure of previous interventions, the Commission has recommended that the Eastern Cape Provincial Executive urgently assess whether the requirements for intervention under section 139(1)(c) of the Constitution are now met, including whether dissolution of the Makana Municipal Council should be considered as a measure of last resort.

The Commission has further recommended that COGTA and the Department of Water and Sanitation consider whether Makana should continue exercising Water Services Authority functions, or whether those functions should be reassigned to another suitably capacitated institution.

Additional recommendations include:

• Urgent completion of Phase 3 of the James Kleynhans Water Treatment Works upgrade.
• Continued enforcement action by the Department of Water and Sanitation where there is persistent non-compliance.
• Consideration of criminal and enforcement mechanisms available under water legislation where appropriate.
• Ongoing monitoring and enforcement by the Department of Employment and Labour regarding unsafe municipal infrastructure facilities.

Human Rights Cannot Wait

The Commission acknowledges the difficult operating environment facing local government. However, residents have now endured recurring water shortages, sewage spillages and sanitation failures for years.

Communities cannot be expected to wait indefinitely while constitutional rights continue to be infringed.

The Commission will continue monitoring implementation of the recommendations contained in the report and reserves all powers available to it under the Constitution and the SAHRC Act should further intervention become necessary.

ENDS