Note to Editors: Please find attached English and Afrikaans soundbites by David Mc Kay MPL, and Sesotho soundbite by Jafta Mokoena MPL.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) will intensify oversight of failing municipalities across the Free State, demand urgent maintenance and infrastructure upgrades, and hold those responsible for the province’s deepening water crisis accountable. Residents are paying for services they are simply not receiving, and this cannot continue.
Access to clean, reliable water is not a luxury or a privilege. It is a fundamental human right. Communities are being denied this basic service due to persistent municipal failure. Instead of protecting this essential resource, water has progressively been caught up in political maneuvering, allowing those in power to reap the rewards while ordinary residents are left to suffer the consequences.
For many families, the crisis has ceased to be a distant concept; it has now become an inescapable part of their daily lives. In certain communities, children are unable to attend school because their families don’t have sufficient water for basic hygiene and daily needs. Residents find themselves standing in long lines for water or, worse, going without it altogether. Meanwhile, neglected infrastructure continues to collapse: pipes burst, reservoirs leak, and treatment plants malfunction, leaving entire communities without a safe and reliable supply.
The crisis is made worse by the pollution of critical water sources. Failing wastewater infrastructure and untreated sewage are contaminating rivers and dams across the province. This threatens public health, damages agriculture, and undermines the sustainability of already fragile water systems. In addition to being environmental disasters, these failures pose serious risks to communities’ health and well-being.
What makes this situation even more intolerable is that residents are still expected to pay for services that are never provided. Households are billed for water that never reaches their taps while municipalities neglect essential maintenance and fail to upgrade ageing infrastructure. This ongoing pattern of neglect and mismanagement only worsens the crisis.
The reality is that the very ANC-run municipalities that brought about this crisis cannot be relied upon to resolve it. Years of poor governance, weak oversight, and the failure to prioritise basic service delivery have brought the Free State to this point. Voters deserve a government that values water as the vital resource it truly is, rather than using it as a political tool or a means for personal gain.
The DA will continue to expose failures, demand urgent investment in water infrastructure, and push municipalities to properly maintain the systems residents depend on. But lasting change will only come when voters hold the ANC accountable at the ballot box and choose leadership committed to competent, transparent governance and reliable service delivery.
When water systems fail, it is communities who pay the price first. The DA believes every resident in the Free State deserves safe, reliable water and a government that protects this essential resource for future generations.