Elections 2026
Ahead of the local government elections on 4 November Health-e News is turning the spotlight on how municipal services and their failures affect people’s health with a new investigative series: Elections 2026: Is Your Municipality Keeping You Healthy? While provincial health departments manage clinics, hospitals and medical staff, municipalities are responsible for many of the conditions that shape the health of the communities where we live. Clean water, working sanitation, reliable waste removal, stormwater drainage, safe food environments and accessible roads all have an impact on public health. When local services fail, communities get sick. The scale of some of these challenges is already evident. The governments’ Green Drop Report found that 47% of South Africa’s wastewater treatment systems were in a critical state, up from 39% in 2022. The Department of Water and Sanitation says this deterioration is placing increasing pressure on water resources, the environment and public health.
A year after the City of Johannesburg announced a R150-million project to rehabilitate the decommissioned Kya Sands landfill, residents living nearby say recurring waste fires and smoke from illegal dumping continue to affect their daily lives, with some reporting breathing problems. The Kya Sands landfill site, decommissioned more than 15 years ago after reaching capacity, borders a densely populated informal settlement, several middle class residential suburbs and an industrial manufacturing hub. The City previously estimated that deteriorating air quality associated with the fires was affecting about 80,000 residents in and around Fourways, Cedar Lakes and Bloubosrand. Smoke affecting residents “I cough every single day. It recently woke me up at 3 o’clock in the morning, because I couldn’t breathe, and I started coughing immediately,” says 60-year-old Deborah Ball, who moved into an estate in Craigavon in August last year. She said she did not have asthma before moving to the
The old mine dumps surrounding Slovo Park in Springs on Gauteng’s East Rand are difficult to miss. Three of the mine dumps rise high behind people’s homes, forming part of the landscape of the small community between Bakerton and Welgedacht. Residents say dust from the dumps blows into their homes on windy days. But people in Slovo Park and neighbouring areas are also concerned about a strong, unpleasant smell that regularly settles over parts of Springs. Their concerns come as the City of Ekurhuleni confirms that its Springs air-quality monitoring station is currently not reporting to the South African Air Quality Information System (SAAQIS). The City says the station last consistently produced reliable, validated data in July 2026. Essential technical maintenance and calibration have not been done because a specialist service provider is required. The City says it is still going through a procurement process to appoint one. Living next
64-year-old Josephine Nyama says when she received a call from neighbours at 6am on New Year’s Day, she heard the shocking news that her brother had been found dead on live wires used for illegal electricity connections in Meriting, Lenasia South, in Gauteng. “I was shaking, I lost my thinking for a second,” she says. “I asked my daughter and other family members to go and identify if it was him.” Her daughter returned and confirmed it was her brother, Steven Nyama, who was 67 at the time of his death. A mere four months later, in May this year, Nyama’s three-year-old granddaughter was also electrocuted while playing with friends at a neighbour’s house. The child touched a fence that was in contact with a live wire from an illegal electricity connection. Neighbours managed to pull her away. “Luckily neighbours were able to rush and remove her from the fence,
When Forget Ndou’s sister went into labour in March this year, she had to run about a kilometre from her home at 2am to find a cellphone signal so she could call an ambulance. The 36-year-old Brenda Muleba was experiencing labour pains, but Ndou says she could not make the call from home because of poor network coverage. “There is a spot near the railway line about a kilometre from my home where the network is sometimes accessible. To save the situation, I had to brave the night to the spot. I was really scared,” she says. Ndou tried calling for about an hour before finally getting through at around 3am. She says the ambulance arrived about an hour later at 4am. “This was really a nasty experience. How was I going to handle the situation if my sister gave birth at home?” she asks. Emergency calls affected When Health-e
For 47-year-old Jonas Molefe Motau, who is blind, getting to work means navigating rocky roads, potholes and a busy road without a pedestrian crossing in Stinkwater, Hammanskraal. Motau walks more than four kilometres to and from his workplace at the Benjamin Moloise Community Centre, using a white cane to find his way around obstacles. “The roads are uneven, rocky and full of holes, the only time municipality scrape them is when there is a funeral on that street, other than that, they are not conducive for someone who can’t see like me,” he says. Motau took Health-e News along his daily route to demonstrate the difficulties he faces. Crossing a busy road Motau’s biggest challenge is crossing Molefe Makinta Highway, a main metropolitan road in the City of Tshwane, joining the M21 Highway that connects Ga-Rankuwa with Hammanskraal via Mabopane and Soshanguve. There is no pedestrian crossing along the busy
Residents of Makhuvha village near Giyani in Limpopo say they have been struggling to access clean water since a communal borehole stopped working in March last year, forcing families to buy water or collect it from unsafe sources. Christine Mashel says her family has had to pay for safe drinking water since last year and blames the situation on the removal of a borehole pump by officials from Mopani District Municipality. “We have been without water since March 2025. We buy water for R10 and we travel long distances to fetch water,” she told Health-e News. “We often drink contaminated water and this poses severe health risks. We are suffering because we don’t always have money.” Mashel says residents pay R5 for a 25-litre container of water or R250 for a 2,500-litre tank. Villagers told Health-e News that residents who cannot afford to buy water sometimes collect it from unprotected
Residents in Musina, Limpopo, are concerned about their health as sewage continues to flow through residential streets. Unreliable water supplies force some households to spend hundreds of rands per month buying water. Musina resident, Norah Ndlovu says she fears children are particularly vulnerable because they play in streets where sewage flows. Ndlovu says in July her son, who attends St Martin De Porres Primary School in Musina, experienced stomach pains, vomiting and a high fever. She suspects he became ill after playing in sewage on his way home from school. “I am sure my child, coming from school, played in this sewage water and got affected. I had to take him to Nancefield Clinic,” she says. Ndlovu says her son received treatment at the local clinic. Ndlovu says the problem is compounded by unreliable access to running water. Sewage surrounds homes Health-e News visited Skoonplaas, a township a short distance
41-year-old Richard Lebea, who has lived with asthma since childhood, says living next to a wastewater treatment plant and an illegal dumping site on the outskirts of Seshego township in Limpopo is taking a toll on his health. For years, residents in the northern parts of Seshego have complained about the stench from the wastewater treatment plant and smoke from burning rubbish at the nearby dumping site. Lebea was diagnosed with asthma in 1988 at Helen Franz Hospital when he was six years old. His family relocated to the Polokwane area, hoping that being closer to healthcare facilities would make it easier for him to access treatment. But Lebea says living close to a wastewater treatment plant and an illegal dumping site where people from neighbouring sections discard household rubbish and dead animals impacts his health. Smoke worsens breathing difficulties When Health-e News visited the area recently, piles of garbage
53-year-old Moipone Mahonko, who is partially blind, has suffered burns and cuts while cooking over an open fire since a prolonged electricity outage left 116 households in Lakeside Estate in Midvaal, Gauteng without power for more than four months after a transformer broke down. Mahonko, who survives on a disability grant, lives with her three children, aged 31, 19 and nine. “Before we lost electricity, I was not struggling because I could turn on the stove and cook or make tea. But now I struggle,” she says. “Before it was permanently damaged in June, this transformer used to trip a lot. As a collective, we would contribute money between R30, R50 and R100 to hire and pay someone in the community to switch the power on.” Cooking has become dangerous Mahonko says she now has to cook outside using an open fire and at times unintentionally throws empty aerosol canisters