GNU parties welcome Ramaphosa’s water committee but question implementation

Johannesburg’s water crisis and gang-related killings on the Cape Flats have finally caught President Cyril Ramaphosa’s attention, and in this year’s State of the Nation Address (Sona), he announced measures to solve these problems. Now, the focus turns to implementation.

During his speech, the President announced he would chair a national water crisis committee to address the ongoing water crisis.

“[Much like crime], water is now the single most important issue for many people in South Africa, from large cities like Johannesburg to smaller towns like Knysna and rural areas like Giyani.

“We have all seen the pain that our people have been expressing through demonstrations in various parts of Gauteng. These protests have been fuelled by frustrations over inadequate and unreliable access to basic services such as water,” said Ramaphosa.

Read more: State of the Nation in the shadow of the water tanker

There has been growing political pressure for Ramaphosa to intervene in Joburg’s water crisis, after a multi-system failure left many parts of the city with dry taps for weeks.

There have been at least three governmental interventions to address the water crisis in the province since 2023, including a water task team set up by Ramaphosa himself and chaired by Deputy President Paul Mashatile in March 2024, none of which have borne fruit.

The new national water crisis task force, Ramaphosa said, “will bring together all existing efforts into a single coordinating body”. He will now effectively take over the oversight role from Mashatile.

Read more: Ramaphosa deploys ministers before Sona to ‘urgently’ tackle Joburg’s water crisis

‘Vote ANC out’ – DA

Reacting to Ramaphosa’s speech, DA leader John Steenhuisen said in a statement after the Sona that the water crisis would not be addressed unless people voted the ANC out of power in municipalities.

“The water crisis faced by many South Africans was caused by ANC mayors and cadre deployment. The situation will not recover unless voters choose a new government with a proven track record in honest, transparent governance. Where the DA governs, we deliver water within the existing framework, proof that it can be done,” said Steenhuisen.

Read more: Morero denies Joburg water at ‘national disaster stage’ as DA heads to court

Ramaphosa’s water reforms are two-fold: the creation of the task force and a draft law that will hold water utilities responsible for infrastructure and water provision.

The ANC’s first deputy secretary-general, Nomvula Mokonyane (who was the country’s water and sanitation minister between 2014 and 2018), said the Water Services Amendment Act was a “major breakthrough”. This was because South Africa had adequate water resources, but the crisis stemmed from governance and maintenance shortcomings, she said.

“South Africa has sufficient water. The challenge that we are facing now is because over the years, it was the local government that had the authority to receive the grants and was expected to do reticulation from the dams, as well as do maintenance that they have not done,” she said.

Mokonyane explained that amendments to the Water Services Act would now allow the national government to intervene more directly.

“With the amendment to the Water Services Act, it means that the national government can bring entities and institutions directly at the level of local government,” she said.

Freedom Front Plus leader Corné Mulder echoed the DA’s comments, saying that the country’s water crisis boiled down to poor ANC governance.

“The President made it clear some time ago that water is the next huge crisis in the country… But water is not the problem – infrastructure is the problem. And the irony is that the President who spoke tonight is the President of the country, but he’s also the president of the party that is governing the vast majority of local governments where we’ve seen this failure of governance,” Mulder told Daily Maverick.

He believed it was “very telling” that Ramaphosa was taking over Mashatile’s role to chair the water crisis committee. “We’ve seen in the past when the President gets involved, it’s basically when things are completely out of hand and about to collapse.”

Read more: One big win, many hard failures — Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation report card

Good party secretary-general Brett Herron welcomed Ramaphosa’s interventions.

“It’s important that the buck stops right at the top – at the door of the President,” said Herron.

“The issue is how soon the water crisis task team, which he will now chair, can make a meaningful intervention, because there are people in the City of Johannesburg who have been without water for some 25 days. So it’s an immediate crisis,” he said.

Outside the Government of National Unity (GNU), EFF leader Julius Malema said there was no capacity in the 10-party coalition to deal with the country’s water woes.

“Billions have been thrown into the Giyani Project. There is still no water. So utter trillions and billions from a speech doesn’t translate into our people having water – and this thing of task teams is a person who is failing to execute their own responsibility and shift it to other people,” said Malema.

ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba said Ramaphosa’s announcement was disingenuous.

He said the interventions had come too late, blaming 30 years of dysfunction in local government. He argued that cities had been allowed to expand without proper upgrades to infrastructure or new development, and that poor leadership had been placed in key positions.

“We’ve allowed the cities to grow without upgrading existing infrastructure, without building new infrastructure, putting compromised leadership in these municipalities, and unfortunately, it’s been the culture of the ANC, and for as long as the system continues, we’re going to have problems in this country,” Mashaba said.

Boots on the ground

On Thursday, Ramaphosa ​​also announced that the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) would be deployed to Cape Town to help fight gangsterism, and to Gauteng to help tackle illegal mining.

UDM leader and Deputy Minister of Defence Bantu Holomisa told Daily Maverick that the plan to deploy the SANDF was first pitched by the President to the other GNU members at a Cabinet Lekgotla towards the end of last year, and was discussed again in the two-day lekgotla last month.

“It’s not going to be like we’re sending troops to war; we will be supporting the police,” Holomisa told Daily Maverick.

PA leader and Sport, Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie also welcomed the deployment of the SANDF, as did Mulder.

“Today, I had tears in my eyes when the President said the army is going into the Cape Flats because I know how our people are dying there. As we are speaking now, somebody is dying, but now for the head of state to also listen to us when we say, ‘President, the army’ and now the army is going, I feel proud to serve under such a President,” McKenzie told Daily Maverick.

Towards the end of 2025, McKenzie’s party, which has support from many communities affected by gang violence, began a “Coloured Lives Matter” campaign, which highlighted people killed by gang violence. In November 2025, he told party supporters that he’d bring the calls for army deployment to Ramaphosa during Cabinet meetings.

Malema, however, said: “I appreciated the intervention by the army in the areas where gangsterism has taken the streets of our townships, that is a confirmation that the South African Police Service has dismally failed. The President is just scared to say they’ve lost confidence in [the] SAPS, hence the army, and we are happy that the army is coming.”

Dereleen James from ActionSA, who shouted, “It’s about time,” during Ramaphosa’s announcement, told Daily Maverick afterwards: “I’m really pleased to hear that [the] SANDF will be deployed to the Western Cape, but I will believe that and I will celebrate that when I see the boots on the ground.”

But Fadiel Adams from the National Coloured Congress had a rather different reaction: “We’ve had gang deployment before – It’s called the AGU,” he said, referring to the deployment of the specialised SAPS Anti-Gang Unit (AGU).

“They were promised cars, tech, full support of government, and then they were hung out to dry, and today 11 AGU members are before the court for for for murder because of the pressures that they work under,” he said, in referring to an ongoing court case involving 11 officers attached to the unit who, as Daily Maverick has reported, face murder charges.

“So now it’s an election year, now they’re coming with a task team again. Remember the AGU was also released shortly before an election last time,” said Adams, calling on the government to provide education for young people.

“What does he do? More guns, more police. We are asking to change our social circumstances. What does he do? He reverts to type – more guns, more police. What we need is societal change; this is a big disappointment for us,” he said.

Sona speeches often include lofty promises; so where to now with these interventions?

“It is about the ministers and their deputies and their departments doing the things that the President has committed the executive to do,” said Inkatha Freedom Party spokesperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa.

Hlengwa said his party was calling for the President to strengthen the accountability of his executive. DM