While there is measured optimism to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s recent State of the Nation Address (SONA), where water was rightly identified as the “single most important issue” confronting many South Africans, we must underscore that this emergency has been building for decades.  

Engineering experts, industry bodies and multiple sectors have issued repeated, evidence-based warnings about the progressive deterioration of water-related infrastructure due to chronic underinvestment, deferred maintenance, and systemic neglect. We have also consistently described this pattern as a national crisis in the making, yet meaningful, forward-looking action has remained limited.

The President’s reflection on 30 years of constitutional democracy is poignant: our founding document guarantees every citizen access to basic services, including reliable water and sanitation, as a fundamental human right.  

It is profoundly troubling that, three decades later, millions still endure intermittent or non-existent supply. This reality raises a critical question, did it truly require widespread protests and intense media scrutiny in Gauteng, our economic heartland, to force this issue onto the national agenda? The answer highlights a deeper governance challenge: reactive rather than proactive leadership. 

We commend the announcement of a National Water Crisis Committee, chaired by the President and modelled on the National Energy Crisis Committee. This structure holds potential to deliver decisive intervention, if properly constituted and empowered. Crucial questions must be addressed transparently: Who will serve on the committee? 

Will our members, practising engineers and technical specialists, who have long called for inclusion at decision-making levels, finally receive a meaningful seat? Without our members’ frontline expertise in design, asset management, operations, and resilience planning, there is a genuine risk that the committee will default to short-term, patchwork repairs instead of architecting sustainable, long-term solutions. 

The committee must transcend symbolism. It requires clear executive authority, transparent accountability mechanisms, defined timelines, and a mandate focused on integrated, forward-thinking strategies that tackle root causes. While crime and vandalism worsen infrastructure damage, the fundamental problems stem from aging networks unable to meet escalating demand, population growth, urbanisation, and intensifying climate pressures. South Africa urgently needs a paradigm shift, from reactive patching to proactive upgrading with built-in climate resilience. 

The commitment to invest over R156 billion in water and sanitation infrastructure over the next three years is a welcome signal. History, however, demonstrates that funding announcements alone do not resolve crises. Effective delivery demands streamlined procurement, timely and predictable payments, reduced fragmentation across spheres of government, and authentic public-private partnerships that leverage private-sector innovation and efficiency. 

While water challenges often manifest locally, we cannot lose sight of parallel failures in electrical distribution systems, equally plagued by insufficient maintenance, capacity shortfalls, and delayed upgrades. Local government weaknesses, including institutional capability gaps, poor financial discipline, and chronic service delivery shortfalls, underpin many of these issues. The President’s pledge to pursue charges against negligent municipalities and officials is encouraging, but words must translate into swift, visible enforcement and structural reform. 

We urge our member firms to therefore stand fully prepared to contribute innovative, sustainable engineering solutions. We urge the Presidency to ensure engineers are meaningfully included, that the committee’s membership and terms of reference are publicly clarified, and that regular, transparent progress updates are provided to the public and stakeholders, far more frequently than annual SONAs. Building trust requires consistent communication and demonstrable accountability. 

As the President affirmed, “This must be the year that we make South Africa stronger.” For us, strength begins and ends with decisive implementation, cross-sector collaboration, and unwavering accountability. We call on government to seize this moment and partner with the consulting engineering sector to convert crisis into opportunity for genuine, enduring change.