- More than 400 people fell ill after Bronkhorstspruit’s water treatment plant went without chlorine for three weeks, with most patients being children under four.
- Sewage pollution, malfunctioning treatment equipment and the failure to warn residents exposed serious weaknesses in water safety and municipal accountability.
- Independent testing, urgent repairs and disciplinary action are needed to restore safe drinking water and establish who was responsible for the crisis.
For three weeks, the taps in Bronkhorstspruit ran unchlorinated, and the people drinking from them were never warned. By mid-October, 408 people, most of them children under four, had fallen ill, with 72 new patients arriving on 13 October alone and overwhelming local clinics and the hospital.
Tests found extremely high levels of E. coli in the plant’s water, and the National Institute for Communicable Diseases stool tests found norovirus, Campylobacter and Shigella but no cholera, pointing to a common water source.
Chlorine, the last barrier between a polluted river and a glass of water, was missing from 24 September to 14 October, after the City of Tshwane ran into difficulties with its chlorine supplier. It was one of three failures: a polluted source, a missing safeguard and official silence. Any one might have been survivable. Together, they made hundreds sick.
A polluted river, and a system that looks fine on paper
The plant draws its raw water from the Bronkhorstspruit River, which is badly contaminated by sewage from dysfunctional wastewater works upstream and from failing Tshwane pump stations. None of this is new, and inside the plant, pumps, sand filters and other equipment were not working either.
The latest Green Drop report found 47% of audited wastewater systems nationally in a critical state, and a failing plant that discharges into a river becomes the drinking-water problem of the next town downstream. Drinking-water safety begins with sewage treatment.
The latest Blue Drop progress assessment, covering 2023/24, rates about 62% of drinking-water systems low risk and 7.9% critical, with the major metros generally performing well. Most South Africans in big cities can therefore trust their taps, but not all.
The failure to warn, and a trust already broken
The most troubling failure was the least technical: nobody told residents. The Department of Water and Sanitation indicated that the City did not warn them, as the 2025 Compulsory Standards for Water Services require. For weeks, families kept drinking, cooking with and bathing in unsafe water. A timely warning can be the difference between a precaution and an emergency.
The silence also lands on damaged ground. Tshwane has been here before. In 2019, officials cancelled a chlorine contract with no contingency plan, and untreated water was released into the Apies River from the Rooiwal wastewater works, affecting Hammanskraal’s water supply.
Each time, the lesson was declared learned, and each repeat deepens public distrust. When ratings call a system low risk, yet taps fail, and warnings come late or not at all, residents stop believing official assurances.
What must happen now, and who answers for it
Safe water must reach every affected household first. Chlorine was restored on 15 October, and the plant reopened on 16 October, yet residents were told the water is still not fit to drink, and officials cannot say when it will be. The City has raised its tanker fleet to 36, supplied from Cullinan, which tested safe, and the Water Research Commission is testing independently and investigating the causes.
Rand Water, Africa’s largest water utility, is being appointed as implementing agent, bringing a wealth of experience and knowledge. Working with the Department of Water and Sanitation’s engineers, it is developing a plan to repair the plant, including whether it should be isolated for further work.
The plant should supply residents again only when independent tests show the water is free of harmful bacteria, reservoirs and pipes have been flushed and disinfected, chlorine levels are verified across the network and not just at the plant, and health authorities sign off. Until then, residents must not drink the tap water, even boiled, or use it for cooking, washing food, brushing teeth or bathing. It is fit only for flushing toilets, and anyone with symptoms should seek medical attention early.
Accountability must follow. Mayor Nasiphi Moya has publicly accepted responsibility for what she called negligence, an admission few mayors would make, and says disciplinary proceedings have begun. National government has also started regulatory steps against those responsible for the pollution and for breaching water service standards. These are a start, not an answer.
The Water Research Commission’s independent report on the causes, due by 28 October, must establish exactly where the failures occurred, from procurement and monitoring at the plant to the silence that kept residents in the dark, and those responsible must face consequences.
Bronkhorstspruit was not a freak event. It was the predictable result of a polluted river, a missing safeguard and a failure to tell people the truth.
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