Contrary to BusinessTech’s report, Government built 62 Dams with 4.4 billion mᵌ storage capacity since 1994 to ensure water security in the country
The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) is dismayed by the misinformed report by the BusinessTech published on 03 July 2025 titled -‘South Africa built 1,583% more dam capacity in the 30 years before 1994 than after it’- claiming that the democratic government only managed to build two big dams since 1994, as compared to the previous government that built 14 dams in a space of 30 years. The article further suggests that the current water challenges that are being experienced in the country were as a result of lack of investment on new water resources infrastructure. This misinformation is aggravated by the fact that DWS, as the custodian of water resources in the country, was not afforded an opportunity to provide its position prior to publication of such inaccurate information and therefore views it as nothing but an attempt to discredit the work of the democratic government.
The writer conveniently confuses the current challenges of water supply whose causal factor is fully documented (Blue & No Drop Reports and the recent National Water Indaba) to the availability or lack thereof of water resources.
On the contrary, DWS can confirm that since the dawn of democracy in 1994 and the last 30 years, government has built 62 dams of various sizes (small, medium and large) including three transboundary dams, two in Lesotho and one in Eswatini, to ensure that the country is water secured, and continue to develop more water resources infrastructure across the country and through transboundary cooperation with the neighbouring countries, in order to meet the demand of the rapidly growing South African population (see the attached spreadsheet for list of dams).
The dams, which were constructed by DWS and others by municipalities and are used for variety of purposes including for domestic supply of water, irrigation, mining and industrial use have a total water storage capacity of 4 478 614 000 cubic metres (about 4.4 billion mᵌ).
As such, the country’s water resources demand is in balance with the available water resources in the water supply systems and the national storage capacity of reservoirs sitting at 97% on average.
South Africa being one of the 30 water-scarce countries globally with an average rainfall significantly below the world average, DWS, continues to plan and implement water resource infrastructure development to address any projected future water deficits and long-term needs. This is done through building new dams, raising walls of existing dams to increase storage capacity and to explore other sources such as underground water and water re-use. The Department further encourages Water Services Authorities (municipalities) to develop localised water resources infrastructure within their area of service to augment the available water resources as dams with smaller capacity are also very critical for domestic supply particularly in rural communities and sparsely populated towns of our country.
While the country is on balance, DWS continues to develop more water resource infrastructure within the country and through transboundary water resources cooperation to ensure security for future demand.
To this end, the department is currently implementing water resource projects in various parts of the country to augment the available water in the water supply systems. These include the raising of the Clanwilliam Dam wall in the west coast of the Western Cape, by 13 meters and the Tzaneen Dam wall project by 3 metres in the Limpopo province. Construction of 11 new dams is also underway, with most of the projects are still in their design phase and others on construction stages. These include the 490 million mᵌ Ntabelanga Dam, which is part of the Mzimvubu water project; the 187 million mᵌ Nwamitwa Dam in Limpopo; the 4.7 million mᵌ Coerney Dam in the Eastern Cape; the 17.3 million mᵌ Zalu Dam; the 55 million mᵌ Foxwood Dam Project; the 15.5 million mᵌ Cwabeni Off-Channel Storage Dam will improve water supply to the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast region; of 9.8 million mᵌ Stephen Dlamini Dam; the uMkhomazi Water Project that aims to increase the amount of available water in the uMngeni System by 55% in KZN; the Berg River-Voëlvlei Augmentation Scheme to increase the amount of available water in the Western Cape Water Supply System; and the second phase of the Mokolo and Crocodile River (West) Water Augmentation in Limpopo.
The Lesotho Highlands Water Project Phase 2 (LHWP-2) which consists of the construction of new Polihali Dam and a gravity tunnel connecting it to Katse Dam in Lesotho is also currently under construction and will increase the capacity of water transfer from the Lesotho highlands to the Integrated Vaal River System by 480 million mᵌ.
These water resource projects demonstrate the Department's efforts of ensuring that the country is water secured, while making efforts to improve access to reliable and quality drinking water to communities through the review of legislative and regulatory mechanisms and provision of support to municipalities struggling to meet their constitutional obligation of providing water and sanitation services to citizens.
For more information, contact
Ms Wisane Mavasa, Spokesperson for the Department of Water and Sanitation
Cell: 060 561 8935
E-mail: mavasaw@dws.gov.za
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