Madibeng Local Municipality, covering the towns of Brits and Hartbeespoort in North West, has accumulated approximately R2 billion in debt while failing to provide basic water and sanitation services. The municipality received an adverse audit opinion from the Auditor-General, indicating its financial statements are materially misstated and unreliable.
Residents have made explosive allegations that water infrastructure is deliberately contaminated or sabotaged to create artificial emergencies, enabling politically connected individuals to profit from emergency tanker contracts. The pattern matches the national "water mafia" phenomenon documented by the ISS/ENACT: destroy infrastructure, create crisis, win tanker tenders at inflated prices.
Brits and Hartbeespoort communities experience weeks without water despite the area being well-supplied by the Hartbeespoort Dam and Crocodile River system. The municipality's water treatment works have deteriorated to the point of producing water that fails safety standards. Rather than fix permanent infrastructure, the municipality continues to rely on tanker deliveries — the very mechanism that benefits those alleged to have caused the crisis.