Water Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica says the Department is facing a serious challenge due to illegal water connections. She was speaking at a Water Indaba in Durban. Sonjica says millions of people in South Africa use water illegally, contributing to an extremely high water loss of between 30% and 40% in some areas.

She adds: “It is the combination of illegal water use as well as problem arising from badly managed and maintained infrastructure”.

“Whenever we speak about this problem, it is always associated with people who live in informal settlements, poor people and yet there is a lot of that even within the industry, there are industries that are taking water illegally,” says the Minister.