The Department of Water and Sanitation under Minister Nomvula Mokonyane (2014-2018) became one of the most corrupt government departments in South Africa. The AG flagged over R6 billion in cumulative irregular expenditure during and immediately after her tenure — a staggering amount for a department responsible for the constitutional right to water.
The War on Leaks programme was Mokonyane's flagship initiative, launched in 2015 to train youth as plumber artisans to repair municipal water leaks. The programme was supposed to address South Africa's 37-46% non-revenue water loss. Instead, it became a vehicle for procurement fraud. The SIU investigation found ghost workers on payrolls, incomplete or non-existent training, inflated contractor costs, and politically connected service providers selected through processes bypassing competitive procurement. Over R500 million was consumed with minimal measurable impact on actual water leaks.
Perhaps most damning was the suspension of the Blue Drop and Green Drop assessment programmes in 2014. These water quality monitoring systems, established in 2009, were the primary mechanism for tracking whether South Africa's drinking water and wastewater treatment met standards. Mokonyane suspended both programmes — effectively blinding the country to the accelerating collapse of its water infrastructure. When the assessments were finally resumed in 2022 under Minister Senzo Mchunu, they revealed catastrophic deterioration: only 26 of 1,061 water supply systems achieved Blue Drop status; over 40% of wastewater treatment works were in critical condition.
The Zondo Commission found that during this same period, Mokonyane was receiving gratifications from Bosasa/African Global Operations: R50,000 per month in cash, lavish hampers, catering for ANC events, and security upgrades at her residences. Whether there is a direct causal link between the Bosasa payments and specific DWS procurement decisions has not been established by prosecution, but the temporal overlap is significant.
The DWS corruption is distinct from but related to two other seeded incidents: the Giyani Emergency Water Project (R3.2B, batch 14) and the national water infrastructure collapse (batch 8). This incident covers the departmental-level systematic corruption: irregular expenditure, War on Leaks fraud, Blue Drop suspension as institutional concealment, and the broader procurement failure under Mokonyane.