# The Ballot and the Broken Pipe: Who Can Actually Fix a City?

> MKNIRALO — World — DEEP ESSAY

- Published: 2026-11-05
- Estimated reading time: 24 minutes
- Byline: Iona — International Institutions Observer
- Byline disclosure: Iona is a publication-owned house editorial byline, not a claim of an independently verified individual or a diplomatic correspondent with personal access. Articles use accessible documents and independent reporting, and avoid presenting disputed claims as settled facts.
- Author profile: https://mkniralo.com/authors/iona/
- Tags: South Africa, Local Government, Water Infrastructure, Electricity Distribution, Democratic Accountability, Municipal Governance, Public Finance
- Cover image: https://mkniralo.com/images/the-ballot-and-the-broken-pipe.svg

When services fail, the ballot can change local leaders but not every institution controlling water, electricity and public money. South Africa reveals how accountability must follow real decisions.

When water stops flowing or the lights go out, a city’s elected leaders face the anger. But the power to prevent failure, repair an asset, collect revenue and regulate a supplier does not necessarily sit in the same office. South Africa’s local-government debate reveals why accountability must be traced, not merely announced.

## A ballot cannot turn a valve

Imagine a voter standing at a tap that has stopped running. This is a thought experiment, not an account of any identifiable resident. The voter knows which councillor represents the ward and which parties are asking for another term. They may even know where to complain. What they do not necessarily know is which institution owns the pipeline, which operator controls the pressure upstream, who may authorise a repair, or whether the money intended for maintenance can legally be spent on that particular fault. The absence of water is immediate. The distribution of power behind it is not.

South Africans went to the polls in local-government elections on 4 November 2026, according to the [Independent Electoral Commission’s election-day notice](https://www.gov.za/news/media-statements/electoral-commission-reports-smooth-start-2026-local-government-election-04). Local elections offer a route for residents to change municipal representation. They do not directly elect the executives of a national utility, the board of a bulk-water provider, or the officials responsible for every licence and transfer. That distinction is easy to lose when the physical failure happens close to home and the elected municipality is the most visible public institution.

At the October launch of a revised White Paper on Local Government, President Cyril Ramaphosa put the political duty in unmistakable terms: “A disagreement in council must never become an excuse for an unapproved budget, an abandoned project or the collapse of an essential service.” The [official address of 22 October 2026](https://www.gov.za/news/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-official-launch-revised-white-paper-local-government-22-oct) offers a necessary warning against political evasion. In the same speech, he acknowledged both overlapping mandates and failures within municipal administrations. Neither part of that diagnosis establishes the cause of any particular breakdown; both make it harder to excuse inaction with a general claim that responsibility is shared.

The harder democratic question is therefore not whether local politicians should answer for the condition of local life. They should. It is whether a vote reliably reaches the decisions that caused, prolonged or could have prevented a failure. If the ballot can replace a representative but cannot by itself alter an upstream supply contract, it still matters; it simply matters through a longer chain. A useful theory of accountability has to follow that chain without dissolving every institution’s duties into a vague story of shared blame.

Sources:
- [Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Chapter 7 — Local Government](https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-chapter-7-local-government-07-feb) — South African Government (gov.za)
- [Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Schedule 4, Part B](https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-schedule-4-functional-areas) — South African Government (gov.za)
- [Water Services Act 108 of 1997 — Sections 11, 19, 20, 27 and 29](https://www.gov.za/documents/water-services-act) — South African Government (gov.za)
- [Source to Supply: A Shared Responsibility for a Water-Resilient Future — Section 2 and Section 4.3, printed pp.44–45](https://web.archive.org/web/20260319204806/http://www.agsa.co.za/Portals/0/Reports/Special%20Reports/Water%20board/2025%20WR/Water%20Report%20AGSA%20Interactive.pdf) — Auditor-General South Africa (AGSA)
- [President Cyril Ramaphosa: Official launch of the Revised White Paper on Local Government, 22 October 2026](https://www.gov.za/news/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-official-launch-revised-white-paper-local-government-22-oct) — South African Government (gov.za)
- [Electoral Commission reports smooth start to 2026 local government election, 4 November](https://www.gov.za/news/media-statements/electoral-commission-reports-smooth-start-2026-local-government-election-04) — Electoral Commission of South Africa; South African Government (gov.za)

## Responsibility is not one thing

South Africa’s [Constitution, Chapter 7](https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-chapter-7-local-government-07-feb) gives municipalities genuine executive authority over local-government matters. [Schedule 4, Part B](https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-schedule-4-functional-areas) includes electricity and gas reticulation, and water and sanitation services within specified limits: potable-water supply systems and domestic wastewater and sewage disposal systems. Section 152 names accountable local government and sustainable services among its objects; Section 153 concerns municipal administration, budgets and planning. This is not a constitutional description of a powerless local tier.

But a constitutional function is not a property deed. Nor is a statutory duty automatically an operating manual. One authority can be required to secure a service while another organisation treats water, maintains a bulk pipeline or performs work under an agreement. The [Water Services Act](https://www.gov.za/documents/water-services-act), for example, distinguishes a *water services authority* from a *water services provider*. The first has a duty toward people in its area; service provision may be performed by the authority itself or arranged through another provider. The distinction matters even when the same municipality performs both roles.

To make responsibility legible, seven questions have to be kept separate. Who has the statutory duty to ensure service? Who owns the asset? Who operates it? Who can authorise and perform maintenance? Who controls usable funding? Who regulates and supervises the arrangement? And who is exposed to electoral judgment? Sometimes several answers point to one municipal administration. Sometimes they point to a council, an operating department, a public utility, a regulator and a national treasury. Calling all of them “the government” conceals the differences that matter to a resident seeking a remedy.

These distinctions are not an invitation to declare that nobody is responsible. They are a way to ask a more exact question: responsible *for what*? A legal obligation to monitor a contractor is not identical to the contractor’s duty to fix a valve. A regulator’s power to enforce licence conditions is not the same as a power to dispatch a repair crew. A councillor’s influence over a budget is not necessarily control over the hour at which an upstream pumping system resumes. Each power creates a different form of accountability, with different evidence needed to show a failure.

The first temptation is to stop at the most visible official. The opposite temptation is to draw a complicated chart and excuse that official entirely. Neither follows from the law. Section 151 recognises municipal self-government; Sections 154 and 155 also describe national and provincial support and oversight. South Africa’s system already anticipates more than one sphere of government. The test is not whether a role can be found somewhere in the chain but whether a specific institution had a duty, a feasible choice and a reasonable opportunity to act.

Sources:
- [Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Chapter 7 — Local Government](https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-chapter-7-local-government-07-feb) — South African Government (gov.za)
- [Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Schedule 4, Part B](https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-schedule-4-functional-areas) — South African Government (gov.za)
- [Water Services Act 108 of 1997 — Sections 11, 19, 20, 27 and 29](https://www.gov.za/documents/water-services-act) — South African Government (gov.za)
- [Source to Supply: A Shared Responsibility for a Water-Resilient Future — Section 2 and Section 4.3, printed pp.44–45](https://web.archive.org/web/20260319204806/http://www.agsa.co.za/Portals/0/Reports/Special%20Reports/Water%20board/2025%20WR/Water%20Report%20AGSA%20Interactive.pdf) — Auditor-General South Africa (AGSA)

## From the water source to the household tap

Water exposes these distinctions especially clearly. The Auditor-General’s special water-sector report, [*Source to Supply*](https://web.archive.org/web/20260319204806/http://www.agsa.co.za/Portals/0/Reports/Special%20Reports/Water%20board/2025%20WR/Water%20Report%20AGSA%20Interactive.pdf), maps a value chain involving the national Department of Water and Sanitation, water-resource infrastructure, the Water Trading Entity, the Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority, water boards, water services authorities and water services providers. These are not interchangeable labels for the same organisation. They operate at different places in the journey from water resource to treated bulk supply and onward to a local distribution network. The report’s historical PDF link may not remain accessible; the exact section and printed-page references are retained in the accompanying evidence map.

Section 11 of the Water Services Act gives water services authorities a duty progressively to ensure efficient, affordable, economical and sustainable access, subject to constraints including available resources. It also says an authority may not unreasonably refuse or fail to give access, and in an emergency must take reasonable steps to provide basic water supply and sanitation within its jurisdiction. Section 19 permits provision by the authority itself or through specified agreements; Section 20 requires separate management and accounting when an authority also acts as provider. Under Section 27, the authority must monitor providers and intermediaries within its area. None of this identifies the party that caused a particular outage. But it does defeat the notion that contracting with another operator erases the authority’s own duties.

Consider two possible faults. In one, bulk water arrives at the agreed delivery point, but a leaking municipal pipe or local pumping problem prevents it reaching a neighbourhood. In another, the local distribution equipment is functioning, but less water enters the system from upstream. Those are deliberately hypothetical cases. They may produce the same dry tap while requiring different repairs, records and institutional responses. The first question is technical: where did the interruption occur? The second is institutional: which party controlled that point and what could it have done?

The importance of looking downstream is supported by national audit evidence, although that evidence cannot diagnose an individual town. In its 2023–24 audits, the Auditor-General assessed whether **97 water services authorities** had water-infrastructure maintenance plans. **Thirty did not have such plans; four others did not provide evidence that a plan existed.** The groups are different: failure to produce evidence is not proof of non-existence. These 97 authorities are a specific assessment sample, not the denominator for every finding in the report. The figures appear in *Source to Supply*, **Section 4.3, printed pp. 44–45**, with the table on page 45.

The same report presents a broader measure of maintenance spending. It says **130 of 135** audited water services authorities—**96%**—spent below a National Treasury **recommended**, rather than automatically legally binding, benchmark of **8%** of the carrying value of property, plant and equipment on repairs and maintenance in 2023–24. The average was **3%**. This measure concerns **all assets**, not water assets alone, and uses a different denominator from the 97-authority plan assessment. It is evidence of weak maintenance prioritisation across the audited authorities, not proof of what Merafong spent on a particular pipe or who caused any interruption.

The numbers support two conclusions that need to remain together. Municipal systems cannot be explained solely by distant upstream actors; local planning and maintenance deserve hard scrutiny. But an audit percentage is not an incident report. A missing maintenance plan may increase risk without showing which asset failed on a particular date. A low spending ratio may warrant investigation without proving that a given outage was preventable through one extra payment. Good accountability treats such statistics as directions for questioning, not verdicts delivered in advance.

Sources:
- [Water Services Act 108 of 1997 — Sections 11, 19, 20, 27 and 29](https://www.gov.za/documents/water-services-act) — South African Government (gov.za)
- [Source to Supply: A Shared Responsibility for a Water-Resilient Future — Section 2 and Section 4.3, printed pp.44–45](https://web.archive.org/web/20260319204806/http://www.agsa.co.za/Portals/0/Reports/Special%20Reports/Water%20board/2025%20WR/Water%20Report%20AGSA%20Interactive.pdf) — Auditor-General South Africa (AGSA)

## Merafong: a disputed water chain, not a settled culprit

Merafong City Local Municipality in Gauteng offers a concrete place to test the chain. In a [public notice concerning Merafong](https://www.randwater.co.za/media/media_statements/Merafong%20Public%20Notice.pdf), bulk supplier Rand Water identified an existing **Bulk Water Supply Contract** and said the municipality owed **R838,237,998.06**, payable according to the notice’s English-language passage by **30 April 2024**. The notice proposed a **20% reduction** in bulk potable-water supply after a notice period. The Afrikaans passage of the same notice gives a different due date, so the 30 April date is specifically the English-version date, not an independently reconciled contractual timestamp. The notice proves what Rand Water said and intended; on its own, it does not prove when a reduction was actually implemented or which homes lost water because of it.

A later financial snapshot comes from the supplier’s own accounts, not from a directly comparable monthly debt series. In its [2025 integrated annual report](https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/Docs/ann_rep/01dx3n75c5gsvoiuqfurbysjyhnrksicsc.pdf), Rand Water included Merafong among municipalities with **long-outstanding arrear debt** and listed **R1,372,874,000** at its **30 June 2025** year-end (printed page 307; the table is denominated in thousands of rand). This is Rand Water’s reporting category. It cannot be silently equated with a separate municipal creditor balance, or with every sum claimed to be owed on other dates.

A [Gauteng Provincial Legislature committee statement dated 20 August 2025](https://www.gov.za/news/media-statements/gauteng-provincial-legislature-raises-serious-concerns-over-merafong) described Merafong’s debt to Rand Water as **about R1.4 billion**. It said a **R50 million** payment had secured partial restoration and that approximately **80% of water supply had resumed**. This is the committee’s snapshot, not meter-by-meter proof that 80% of households had continuous service. The committee also described serious municipal governance weaknesses; neither observation independently identifies the cause of any particular neighbourhood’s interruption.

By December 2025, a different institutional record described both actual restrictions and a later debt claim. In a [statement issued on 11 December](https://sahrc.org.za/index.php/sahrc-media/news-2/item/4414-media-statement-the-south-african-human-rights-commission-fosters-solutions-to-tackle-the-ongoing-water-challenges-in-the-municipalities-of-rand-west-and-merafong), the South African Human Rights Commission reported supply reductions of **40% for Merafong** and **20% for Rand West City**. It recorded Rand Water’s statement that Merafong owed **over R1.5 billion**. The percentages refer to different municipalities; the debt claim belongs to the December meeting, not Rand Water’s June year-end accounting category. The Commission’s report of curtailed bulk supply does not measure the water received by every household.

The Commission recorded that Merafong and Rand Water had entered into a **revised debt settlement agreement on 10 December 2025**. Signing a revised agreement is not evidence that its commitments were subsequently met. In a separate resolution, **Rand West**, not Merafong, was to propose how it would settle **R74 million in current-account arrears**. Rand Water was asked to report back to the Commission by **12 December 2025** on the Rand West proposal and related settlement and restriction decisions. Neither the amount nor that specific reporting deadline should be transferred to Merafong.

The Commission referred to complaints from Merafong communities including Kokosi, Fochville and Greenspark, and said its inspections revealed a wider mix of deteriorating infrastructure, supply limitations and inadequate operational resilience across the municipalities under review. That is stronger than a dispute conducted only through press releases. But the statement supplies neither individual fault logs nor a Merafong asset-by-asset finding. It does not show what proportion of a specific community’s interruption arose from bulk curtailment, distribution failures or another cause. Kokosi remains a lead for incident-level investigation, not a proven causal example.

There is a serious counter-reading from the supplier’s side. In comments reported after a [July 2025 public discussion](https://infrastructurenews.co.za/2025/07/30/water-frustrations-not-a-bulk-supply-issue-says-rand-water/), Rand Water chief executive Sipho Mosai argued that ageing municipal distribution infrastructure, high losses and consumption patterns could explain many service difficulties without an overall shortage of treated bulk water. He also discussed how systems can take different amounts of time to recover following maintenance. These are relevant alternatives to a simple upstream-blame story. They remain the supplier’s general explanation, not independent technical findings about a specific Merafong interruption.

The distinction between a reported event and a demonstrated cause matters. The records establish a bulk-supply relationship, dated and differently defined debt claims, an earlier announced intention to restrict supply, later reported curtailment and a signed revised settlement. The Commission expressly reported supply limitations alongside deteriorating infrastructure; the provincial committee pointed to weaknesses in the municipality itself. A plausible account may involve more than one mechanism, but the present records do not apportion their effects or establish whether either party could have restored normal household service alone. Credit control is documented as Rand Water’s stated reason for curtailment; whether the measures were contractually and legally justified, and their effect at a particular tap, require different evidence.

Sources:
- [Source to Supply: A Shared Responsibility for a Water-Resilient Future — Section 2 and Section 4.3, printed pp.44–45](https://web.archive.org/web/20260319204806/http://www.agsa.co.za/Portals/0/Reports/Special%20Reports/Water%20board/2025%20WR/Water%20Report%20AGSA%20Interactive.pdf) — Auditor-General South Africa (AGSA)
- [Merafong Public Notice MLM01/2024 — Bulk Water Supply Contract and proposed restriction](https://www.randwater.co.za/media/media_statements/Merafong%20Public%20Notice.pdf) — Rand Water
- [Integrated Annual Report 2025 — long-outstanding municipal arrear debt, printed p.307](https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/Docs/ann_rep/01dx3n75c5gsvoiuqfurbysjyhnrksicsc.pdf) — Rand Water; Parliament of South Africa document host
- [Gauteng Provincial Legislature raises serious concerns over Merafong](https://www.gov.za/news/media-statements/gauteng-provincial-legislature-raises-serious-concerns-over-merafong) — Gauteng Provincial Legislature; South African Government (gov.za)
- [Water frustrations not a bulk supply issue, says Rand Water — reported comments of CEO Sipho Mosai](https://infrastructurenews.co.za/2025/07/30/water-frustrations-not-a-bulk-supply-issue-says-rand-water/) — Infrastructure News
- [SAHRC fosters solutions to tackle ongoing water challenges in Rand West and Merafong](https://sahrc.org.za/index.php/sahrc-media/news-2/item/4414-media-statement-the-south-african-human-rights-commission-fosters-solutions-to-tackle-the-ongoing-water-challenges-in-the-municipalities-of-rand-west-and-merafong) — South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC)

## Electricity: a licence holder and an operating partner

Electricity supplies a different institutional experiment. South Africa’s Constitution lists electricity and gas reticulation among local-government matters. Yet the practical management of distribution may involve a public utility under a specific agreement. On **8 December 2025**, Merafong and Eskom signed a **Distribution Agency Agreement**, according to their [joint statement published on 10 December](https://www.eskom.co.za/joint-media-statement-eskom-and-merafong-city-local-municipality-sign-distribution-agency-agreement-daa-to-strengthen-electricity-provision-financial-stability-and-service-delivery/). The statement called Merafong the **third** municipality to enter such an arrangement after **Maluti-a-Phofung** and **Emfuleni**.

In the [joint public statement](https://www.eskom.co.za/joint-media-statement-eskom-and-merafong-city-local-municipality-sign-distribution-agency-agreement-daa-to-strengthen-electricity-provision-financial-stability-and-service-delivery/), Eskom and Merafong described electricity distribution and certain retail functions as functions **to be jointly managed**, with billing and revenue collection **to be ring-fenced through Eskom systems**. They said **Merafong would remain the electricity licence holder**, while Eskom would provide technical support and skills transfer. They also announced that **Free Basic Electricity would be disbursed directly by Eskom to qualifying indigent households**. These are announced terms and intended arrangements. The statement does not independently establish that billing, transfers or household service later operated exactly as described.

The division between a licence and an operating arrangement deserves scrutiny, but its significance should not be exaggerated. The public statement says that Merafong remains licence holder; it does not show that Eskom assumed every operational decision or that the council surrendered all meaningful discretion. Equally, retaining a licence does not prove the municipality controls every repair. The signed DAA, licence conditions and asset schedules would be needed to identify the authority to respond to a failed transformer, approve a capital replacement or report an outage. Until then, “jointly managed” is a description from the signatories, not an audited allocation of duties.

The agreement also faces a procedural challenge. In a [12 May 2026 statement](https://www.artikels.afriforum.co.za/en/afriforum-takes-steps-to-have-eskom-merafong-power-distribution-agreement-reviewed/), AfriForum said it had instituted proceedings involving Merafong, Eskom and the National Energy Regulator of South Africa. It questioned public notice, feasibility studies, council resolutions and approvals, and sought to have the DAA declared invalid and set aside. AfriForum also said the municipality had not answered its requests for documents; that is the applicant’s account, not an independently established fact. A [15 May report](https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/south-africa/eskoms-municipal-agency-agreement-heads-to-court/) described the matter at the North Gauteng High Court. The court-stamped pleadings, docket and latest disposition were not in the checked evidence. Allegations and reported proceedings cannot be presented as a judicial finding that the DAA is unlawful.

The strongest arguments on both sides are substantive, not merely rhetorical. Eskom and Merafong presented the DAA as a response to strained municipal operations and revenue collection; technical expertise and ring-fenced collections could help a failing system. AfriForum’s contrary position is that financial distress does not permit public bodies to bypass mandatory procedures, and that replacing one troubled operator with another does not guarantee better governance. The former is a proposed remedy, not demonstrated performance. The latter is a litigant’s challenge, not an adjudication. Better service, lawful process and public scrutiny are separate tests, and the same agreement might pass one while failing another.

For the voter, the DAA creates questions rather than a verified outcome. Which performance targets are binding? Which decisions remain with the council? What reports and remedies must Eskom provide? Who bears the financial consequences of underperformance? And did any measurable service indicator improve after the signing? Neither the joint announcement nor the applicant’s statement answers those questions. An election can change who negotiates and supervises municipal commitments; it does not directly amend contractual terms. Without the complete DAA, licence records, court papers and performance data, a Merafong electricity failure cannot be assigned to either party on this record.

Sources:
- [Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Chapter 7 — Local Government](https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-chapter-7-local-government-07-feb) — South African Government (gov.za)
- [Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Schedule 4, Part B](https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-schedule-4-functional-areas) — South African Government (gov.za)
- [Joint media statement: Eskom and Merafong sign a Distribution Agency Agreement](https://www.eskom.co.za/joint-media-statement-eskom-and-merafong-city-local-municipality-sign-distribution-agency-agreement-daa-to-strengthen-electricity-provision-financial-stability-and-service-delivery/) — Eskom and Merafong City Local Municipality
- [AfriForum takes steps to have Eskom–Merafong power distribution agreement reviewed](https://www.artikels.afriforum.co.za/en/afriforum-takes-steps-to-have-eskom-merafong-power-distribution-agreement-reviewed/) — AfriForum (applicant statement)
- [Eskom’s municipal agency agreement heads to court](https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/south-africa/eskoms-municipal-agency-agreement-heads-to-court/) — Moneyweb

## The strongest objection: the council may already have enough power to fail

The strongest objection to fragmented-accountability analysis is not that institutions are simple. It is that a municipality can retain decisive duties even inside a complicated system. Section 11 of the Water Services Act requires a water services authority progressively to secure access and, in emergencies, to take reasonable steps toward basic water supply and sanitation. Section 27 requires monitoring of providers and intermediaries; Section 19 allows an authority to arrange service provision without abandoning its public role. These provisions do not prove that Merafong breached a duty in any specific incident. They do mean that “the supplier controls the pipe” is no complete answer to questions about contingency planning, oversight, communications and reasonable emergency response.

National audit evidence gives the municipal-responsibility objection weight. Among **97** authorities assessed for water-maintenance plans, **30** had none and **four** provided no proof that a plan existed. In the separate, broader spending assessment, **130 of 135** were below the recommended **8%** general-asset maintenance benchmark, with an average of **3%**. These are documented patterns of poor planning and prioritisation, not proof that 130 municipalities broke the law or that Merafong had the same deficiencies. They strengthen the demand for local records; they cannot substitute for them.

Gauteng’s provincial legislature offered a more place-specific challenge in August 2025. Its committee said Merafong’s financial and governance position had deteriorated, cited prolonged service disruptions and reported that **only 34% of municipal service-delivery targets were met** in the previous financial year. It also raised unresolved oversight and procurement concerns. This is an official committee account, not a completed forensic investigation or a finding that any particular pipe was neglected by a named official. Still, it weighs directly against an explanation that treats Merafong only as the victim of upstream decisions. The municipality’s own performance, collections, planning and contract supervision need serious examination.

A council can fail without being the crew that repairs a component. It may fail to maintain an asset it owns, enforce a provider’s obligations, pursue lawful collection, make workable emergency arrangements or tell residents what is happening. A badly managed revenue system may help create the cash constraint later invoked as a defence. That is a plausible feedback mechanism, not a fact established for Merafong by the documents cited here. Conversely, even a diligent council may confront a restriction outside its authority. The distinction requires decisions, accounts, contracts and fault records—not assumptions that either municipal neglect or external constraint must be the whole story.

Imagine another strictly hypothetical municipality whose pipes, staff, operating budget and repair authorisations are all under its own control. An independent technical inquiry finds that repeated failures came almost entirely from its neglected maintenance and procurement. In such a case, the fragmented-control explanation would be weak. The council’s accountability would be immediate and substantial. The value of a theory is not that it explains every outcome; it is that it can tell us when it should lose to a simpler explanation.

Two questions therefore belong together: what duty was the council required to discharge, and what choices could it actually make? An upstream failure does not automatically erase local duties to plan, monitor, inform and mitigate. Nor does municipal responsibility for a service prove control over the whole system. Officials claiming they lacked power should show the contract, communication and attempted remedies; critics alleging neglect should show the duty, available options and missed action. Shared systems need not produce equal shares of blame. Responsibility must be allocated on evidence, not convenience.

Sources:
- [Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Chapter 7 — Local Government](https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-chapter-7-local-government-07-feb) — South African Government (gov.za)
- [Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Schedule 4, Part B](https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-schedule-4-functional-areas) — South African Government (gov.za)
- [Water Services Act 108 of 1997 — Sections 11, 19, 20, 27 and 29](https://www.gov.za/documents/water-services-act) — South African Government (gov.za)
- [Source to Supply: A Shared Responsibility for a Water-Resilient Future — Section 2 and Section 4.3, printed pp.44–45](https://web.archive.org/web/20260319204806/http://www.agsa.co.za/Portals/0/Reports/Special%20Reports/Water%20board/2025%20WR/Water%20Report%20AGSA%20Interactive.pdf) — Auditor-General South Africa (AGSA)
- [Gauteng Provincial Legislature raises serious concerns over Merafong](https://www.gov.za/news/media-statements/gauteng-provincial-legislature-raises-serious-concerns-over-merafong) — Gauteng Provincial Legislature; South African Government (gov.za)
- [Joint media statement: Eskom and Merafong sign a Distribution Agency Agreement](https://www.eskom.co.za/joint-media-statement-eskom-and-merafong-city-local-municipality-sign-distribution-agency-agreement-daa-to-strengthen-electricity-provision-financial-stability-and-service-delivery/) — Eskom and Merafong City Local Municipality

## When a budget is not the same as usable money

The financial chain makes the political chain more complicated. Under the [Constitution’s finance provisions](https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-chapter-13-finance-07-feb-1997), municipalities are entitled to an equitable share of nationally raised revenue to help provide basic services. They may also receive conditional or unconditional allocations. Section 229 provides defined local revenue powers, including property rates and surcharges on services, subject to law. Section 230A permits municipal borrowing under national legislation and specified limits. These are real powers, but they are not a licence to spend any public money on any purpose at any time.

A budget line can conceal several distinct states of money. An amount may be appropriated but not yet transferred. It may have arrived but be restricted to a defined project. It may appear as revenue while customers have not paid their bills. It may be committed to contractual obligations rather than freely available for a new repair. None of these possibilities proves that a particular municipality lacks funding; equally, the existence of a large headline allocation does not prove the money required for a particular asset is available tomorrow morning.

The Merafong–Rand Water dispute makes that distinction tangible. Rand Water’s annual accounts recorded long-outstanding arrears at a specific year-end. Gauteng’s committee reported a later partial payment and service-restoration development. The Human Rights Commission then recorded a December settlement arrangement and Rand Water’s revised debt claim. These are not one interchangeable debt series. One is a supplier’s annual classification, another a committee’s dated summary and another an account of what the supplier told a rights body. Combining them without their reporting dates would create an illusion of precision.

A municipality that receives a grant may still collect too little revenue, owe suppliers money or underinvest in maintenance; those outcomes can themselves reflect choices worth investigating. A bulk supplier facing unpaid bills may have legitimate financial and operational interests, while residents may still face serious rights consequences from curtailment. The SAHRC treated those concerns as simultaneous, not mutually exclusive. Whether any specific restriction was lawful or proportionate requires the relevant contract, rules and records. Likewise, neither “underfunding” nor “mismanagement” can be pronounced the decisive Merafong explanation without reconciled cash, grant, collection, maintenance-cost and debt evidence.

There is a danger in both simplified financial accounts. One says the council approved a budget, so it could fix every failure. The other says national government controls much of the tax base, so the council could fix nothing. Neither is established by the constitutional design. Resilience is not only about protecting infrastructure; it is also about how authority to maintain it, usable resources and the costs of interruption are distributed. Yet those distributions can be shaped by local governance choices as well as external rules. The test is whether, for the intervention in question, the municipality could reasonably have obtained the money and exercised the authority it had—not whether it was wholly autonomous or wholly powerless.

Sources:
- [Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Chapter 7 — Local Government](https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-chapter-7-local-government-07-feb) — South African Government (gov.za)
- [Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Schedule 4, Part B](https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-schedule-4-functional-areas) — South African Government (gov.za)
- [Integrated Annual Report 2025 — long-outstanding municipal arrear debt, printed p.307](https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/Docs/ann_rep/01dx3n75c5gsvoiuqfurbysjyhnrksicsc.pdf) — Rand Water; Parliament of South Africa document host
- [Gauteng Provincial Legislature raises serious concerns over Merafong](https://www.gov.za/news/media-statements/gauteng-provincial-legislature-raises-serious-concerns-over-merafong) — Gauteng Provincial Legislature; South African Government (gov.za)
- [SAHRC fosters solutions to tackle ongoing water challenges in Rand West and Merafong](https://sahrc.org.za/index.php/sahrc-media/news-2/item/4414-media-statement-the-south-african-human-rights-commission-fosters-solutions-to-tackle-the-ongoing-water-challenges-in-the-municipalities-of-rand-west-and-merafong) — South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC)
- [Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Chapter 13 — Finance, Sections 214, 227, 229 and 230A](https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-chapter-13-finance-07-feb-1997) — South African Government (gov.za)

## Follow the power: a test voters can actually use

A meaningful account of failure would begin with a simple chronology, not a slogan. What stopped working, on what date, and in which service area? What upstream and downstream indicators changed? Which asset was involved? Once those facts are established, the next layer is institutional: who owns the asset, who operates it, who has legal authority to maintain it and who supervises that arrangement? The answer can be a chain rather than a single name, but the chain must consist of named duties—not just a collection of logos.

Then come the financial and response questions. Who had a budget for the work? Was the money approved, transferred and legally usable for that asset? Did a contractor wait for payment, a crew for spare parts, or a municipal official for another body’s approval? In an emergency, what reasonable temporary measures were considered or undertaken for residents? These are questions, not findings about Merafong. Elected officials and operators should disclose the underlying decisions and records so that the burden of reconstructing responsibility does not fall entirely on households already without service.

The test distinguishes three forms of accountability. **Operational accountability** concerns what action an operator or authority should have taken when failure emerged. **Legal and regulatory accountability** concerns compliance with statutory duties, fundamental service obligations, licences, contracts and procedural requirements—including the validity of credit-control measures and agency agreements where contested. **Democratic accountability** concerns what voters can expect their representatives to alter: budgets, oversight, procurement priorities, emergency plans and negotiated service arrangements. The categories overlap but do not collapse into one another. An unlawful procedure would not itself identify the cause of an outage; an emergency repair would not validate a defective agreement.

This approach also has to admit evidence that would count against it. If city records showed that Merafong controlled all relevant assets and repair decisions, with no material external constraint, the dispersed-control claim would weaken. If independently reconciled finances showed ample usable resources, a fiscal-limits explanation would weaken. If technical investigations traced almost every relevant failure to local neglect, the idea of materially shared fault would weaken. And if voters consistently recognised the real decision-makers and electoral turnover improved services, the supposed mismatch between votes and control would be much smaller.

Those are not minor qualifications attached for caution. They are conditions under which the proposed explanation would fail. Each would narrow a distinct part of the argument; all of them together would require withdrawing its central claim. Accountability analysis cannot demand hard evidence against municipalities while tolerating weak evidence in their defence. A framework that always produces the answer “the system is complicated” would be as uninformative as one that always blames the mayor.

The practical demand is for public responsibility maps alongside service statistics: who supplies bulk water, where it is handed over, who owns and operates the local network, who can approve maintenance, which emergency response duties remain with the authority, what performance obligations apply and how disputes and money move between parties. For electricity, the signed agency arrangements, licence boundaries and measurable performance reports matter as much as ceremonial announcements. Such disclosure would not remove disagreement. It would let residents compare each institution’s explanation with the powers and decisions it actually possessed.

Sources:
- [Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Chapter 7 — Local Government](https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-chapter-7-local-government-07-feb) — South African Government (gov.za)
- [Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Schedule 4, Part B](https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-schedule-4-functional-areas) — South African Government (gov.za)
- [Water Services Act 108 of 1997 — Sections 11, 19, 20, 27 and 29](https://www.gov.za/documents/water-services-act) — South African Government (gov.za)
- [Source to Supply: A Shared Responsibility for a Water-Resilient Future — Section 2 and Section 4.3, printed pp.44–45](https://web.archive.org/web/20260319204806/http://www.agsa.co.za/Portals/0/Reports/Special%20Reports/Water%20board/2025%20WR/Water%20Report%20AGSA%20Interactive.pdf) — Auditor-General South Africa (AGSA)
- [Joint media statement: Eskom and Merafong sign a Distribution Agency Agreement](https://www.eskom.co.za/joint-media-statement-eskom-and-merafong-city-local-municipality-sign-distribution-agency-agreement-daa-to-strengthen-electricity-provision-financial-stability-and-service-delivery/) — Eskom and Merafong City Local Municipality
- [AfriForum takes steps to have Eskom–Merafong power distribution agreement reviewed](https://www.artikels.afriforum.co.za/en/afriforum-takes-steps-to-have-eskom-merafong-power-distribution-agreement-reviewed/) — AfriForum (applicant statement)
- [Eskom’s municipal agency agreement heads to court](https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/south-africa/eskoms-municipal-agency-agreement-heads-to-court/) — Moneyweb
- [SAHRC fosters solutions to tackle ongoing water challenges in Rand West and Merafong](https://sahrc.org.za/index.php/sahrc-media/news-2/item/4414-media-statement-the-south-african-human-rights-commission-fosters-solutions-to-tackle-the-ongoing-water-challenges-in-the-municipalities-of-rand-west-and-merafong) — South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC)
- [Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Chapter 13 — Finance, Sections 214, 227, 229 and 230A](https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-chapter-13-finance-07-feb-1997) — South African Government (gov.za)

## The limits of the ballot—and the duties it still creates

The ballot is indispensable, but it is not an all-purpose maintenance instrument. It can change political representation and influence the choices a council makes. It does not directly operate a bulk-water plant, rewrite a utility agreement, inspect a pump or execute a regulatory sanction. Treating the election as the only remedy to service failure risks asking one democratic mechanism to do work that belongs to contracts, engineers, auditors, regulators and competent municipal administration.

That makes the vote more demanding, not less. Voters can ask those seeking office for inventories of the services they oversee, credible maintenance priorities, accounts that distinguish budget from cash, enforceable obligations for providers and a public record of emergency response. They can also ask what a council did when another institution failed: whom it notified, what relief it sought and what temporary protection it arranged. Explaining a genuine limit of power is an elected official’s duty; demonstrating the effort made within that limit is another.

Merafong shows the difference between knowing that a service system is under strain and knowing why a particular household lost it. The public record establishes a bulk-water debt dispute, the SAHRC’s reported water curtailment, a revised settlement, local-governance concerns and an electricity agency agreement facing a legal challenge. It also contains contested explanations about upstream restriction and local distribution. It does not supply the complete contracts, asset maps, licence schedules, incident logs or independently reconciled finances needed to decide which choice caused a specific failure. That gap is a reason to demand records—not an automatic defence for any institution.

A city can fail through neglect by an institution that had the power to act. It can also fail when decisions made at different points in a service chain interact: revenue collections, maintenance, bulk supply, regulatory approval and emergency response. Those are testable alternatives, not interchangeable excuses. Resilience requires more than protecting a physical asset; it also requires making the distribution of authority, resources and consequences visible. Democratic accountability becomes sharper when elected leaders are judged for both the decisions they controlled and the reasonable measures they took when other institutions controlled the next step.

The broken pipe leaves a question that survives election night: **when the service stops at the tap, what would it take for the public to follow responsibility all the way back to the decision that could have kept it running?**

Sources:
- [Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Chapter 7 — Local Government](https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-chapter-7-local-government-07-feb) — South African Government (gov.za)
- [Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Schedule 4, Part B](https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-schedule-4-functional-areas) — South African Government (gov.za)
- [Water Services Act 108 of 1997 — Sections 11, 19, 20, 27 and 29](https://www.gov.za/documents/water-services-act) — South African Government (gov.za)
- [Source to Supply: A Shared Responsibility for a Water-Resilient Future — Section 2 and Section 4.3, printed pp.44–45](https://web.archive.org/web/20260319204806/http://www.agsa.co.za/Portals/0/Reports/Special%20Reports/Water%20board/2025%20WR/Water%20Report%20AGSA%20Interactive.pdf) — Auditor-General South Africa (AGSA)
- [President Cyril Ramaphosa: Official launch of the Revised White Paper on Local Government, 22 October 2026](https://www.gov.za/news/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-official-launch-revised-white-paper-local-government-22-oct) — South African Government (gov.za)
- [Merafong Public Notice MLM01/2024 — Bulk Water Supply Contract and proposed restriction](https://www.randwater.co.za/media/media_statements/Merafong%20Public%20Notice.pdf) — Rand Water
- [Integrated Annual Report 2025 — long-outstanding municipal arrear debt, printed p.307](https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/Docs/ann_rep/01dx3n75c5gsvoiuqfurbysjyhnrksicsc.pdf) — Rand Water; Parliament of South Africa document host
- [Gauteng Provincial Legislature raises serious concerns over Merafong](https://www.gov.za/news/media-statements/gauteng-provincial-legislature-raises-serious-concerns-over-merafong) — Gauteng Provincial Legislature; South African Government (gov.za)
- [Joint media statement: Eskom and Merafong sign a Distribution Agency Agreement](https://www.eskom.co.za/joint-media-statement-eskom-and-merafong-city-local-municipality-sign-distribution-agency-agreement-daa-to-strengthen-electricity-provision-financial-stability-and-service-delivery/) — Eskom and Merafong City Local Municipality
- [AfriForum takes steps to have Eskom–Merafong power distribution agreement reviewed](https://www.artikels.afriforum.co.za/en/afriforum-takes-steps-to-have-eskom-merafong-power-distribution-agreement-reviewed/) — AfriForum (applicant statement)
- [Eskom’s municipal agency agreement heads to court](https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/south-africa/eskoms-municipal-agency-agreement-heads-to-court/) — Moneyweb
- [SAHRC fosters solutions to tackle ongoing water challenges in Rand West and Merafong](https://sahrc.org.za/index.php/sahrc-media/news-2/item/4414-media-statement-the-south-african-human-rights-commission-fosters-solutions-to-tackle-the-ongoing-water-challenges-in-the-municipalities-of-rand-west-and-merafong) — South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC)

## About this article

This article reflects the public sources available on the publication and update dates shown above. For developing stories, follow the linked source pages for subsequent statements or decisions.

## Sources and further reading

- [Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Chapter 7 — Local Government](https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-chapter-7-local-government-07-feb) — South African Government (gov.za) (published 1996) (accessed 2026-11-05)
- [Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Schedule 4, Part B](https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-schedule-4-functional-areas) — South African Government (gov.za) (published 1996) (accessed 2026-11-05)
- [Water Services Act 108 of 1997 — Sections 11, 19, 20, 27 and 29](https://www.gov.za/documents/water-services-act) — South African Government (gov.za) (published 1997) (accessed 2026-11-05)
- [Source to Supply: A Shared Responsibility for a Water-Resilient Future — Section 2 and Section 4.3, printed pp.44–45](https://web.archive.org/web/20260319204806/http://www.agsa.co.za/Portals/0/Reports/Special%20Reports/Water%20board/2025%20WR/Water%20Report%20AGSA%20Interactive.pdf) — Auditor-General South Africa (AGSA) (published 2025-12) (accessed 2026-11-05)
- [President Cyril Ramaphosa: Official launch of the Revised White Paper on Local Government, 22 October 2026](https://www.gov.za/news/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-official-launch-revised-white-paper-local-government-22-oct) — South African Government (gov.za) (published 2026-10-22) (accessed 2026-11-05)
- [Merafong Public Notice MLM01/2024 — Bulk Water Supply Contract and proposed restriction](https://www.randwater.co.za/media/media_statements/Merafong%20Public%20Notice.pdf) — Rand Water (published 2024) (accessed 2026-11-05)
- [Integrated Annual Report 2025 — long-outstanding municipal arrear debt, printed p.307](https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/Docs/ann_rep/01dx3n75c5gsvoiuqfurbysjyhnrksicsc.pdf) — Rand Water; Parliament of South Africa document host (published 2025) (accessed 2026-11-05)
- [Gauteng Provincial Legislature raises serious concerns over Merafong](https://www.gov.za/news/media-statements/gauteng-provincial-legislature-raises-serious-concerns-over-merafong) — Gauteng Provincial Legislature; South African Government (gov.za) (published 2025-08-20) (accessed 2026-11-05)
- [Water frustrations not a bulk supply issue, says Rand Water — reported comments of CEO Sipho Mosai](https://infrastructurenews.co.za/2025/07/30/water-frustrations-not-a-bulk-supply-issue-says-rand-water/) — Infrastructure News (published 2025-07-30) (accessed 2026-11-05)
- [Joint media statement: Eskom and Merafong sign a Distribution Agency Agreement](https://www.eskom.co.za/joint-media-statement-eskom-and-merafong-city-local-municipality-sign-distribution-agency-agreement-daa-to-strengthen-electricity-provision-financial-stability-and-service-delivery/) — Eskom and Merafong City Local Municipality (published 2025-12-10) (accessed 2026-11-05)
- [AfriForum takes steps to have Eskom–Merafong power distribution agreement reviewed](https://www.artikels.afriforum.co.za/en/afriforum-takes-steps-to-have-eskom-merafong-power-distribution-agreement-reviewed/) — AfriForum (applicant statement) (published 2026-05-12) (accessed 2026-11-05)
- [Eskom’s municipal agency agreement heads to court](https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/south-africa/eskoms-municipal-agency-agreement-heads-to-court/) — Moneyweb (published 2026-05-15) (accessed 2026-11-05)
- [SAHRC fosters solutions to tackle ongoing water challenges in Rand West and Merafong](https://sahrc.org.za/index.php/sahrc-media/news-2/item/4414-media-statement-the-south-african-human-rights-commission-fosters-solutions-to-tackle-the-ongoing-water-challenges-in-the-municipalities-of-rand-west-and-merafong) — South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) (published 2025-12-11) (accessed 2026-11-05)
- [Electoral Commission reports smooth start to 2026 local government election, 4 November](https://www.gov.za/news/media-statements/electoral-commission-reports-smooth-start-2026-local-government-election-04) — Electoral Commission of South Africa; South African Government (gov.za) (published 2026-11-04) (accessed 2026-11-05)
- [Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Chapter 13 — Finance, Sections 214, 227, 229 and 230A](https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-chapter-13-finance-07-feb-1997) — South African Government (gov.za) (published 1996) (accessed 2026-11-05)