The Democratic Alliance in the Ba-Phalaborwa Local and Mopani District Municipalities will submit motions to both councils demanding urgent and decisive action to halt the collapse of Phalaborwa’s municipal infrastructure and basic service delivery. Should these demands not be met, the DA will pursue a concerted campaign to place both municipalities under provincial administration.
Specifically, the DA will demand that both councils instruct their respective Municipal Managers, within 30 days, to submit:
- A report on the root causes of persistent service delivery failures and the current state of municipal infrastructure;
- A service delivery recovery plan focused on immediate stabilisation, including urgent maintenance and replacement priorities;
- Infrastructure master plans, with clear implementation timelines, detailing the refurbishment, replacement and expansion of water, sewer, electricity and road infrastructure; and
- Quarterly progress reports on implementation, to be tabled before council.
In addition, the DA will demand that these matters be referred to the respective Municipal Public Accounts Committees (MPACs) for oversight, and that the 2026/27 Integrated Development Plans and budgets of both municipalities explicitly provide for, and adequately fund, the required remedial actions.
These demands arise from a sustained and escalating service delivery crisis engulfing Phalaborwa and its residents. The town has experienced repeated electricity and water outages, sewage overflows, and rapidly deteriorating roads. These are not isolated or extraordinary incidents, but the result of systemic infrastructure collapse, chronic operational incapacity, and weak, reckless and irresponsible governance by the ANC-led Ba-Phalaborwa Local and Mopani District municipalities.
See here, here, and here.
Phalaborwa’s residents and businesses are now trapped in a deepening service delivery crisis under ANC-led local and district governance – one that extends far beyond household inconvenience and threatens environmental health, community dignity, industrial productivity, commercial viability, tourism sustainability, jobs, livelihoods and local economic growth.
Between October 2025 and early January 2026, residents and businesses reported up to 65 electricity outages and 45 water outages, many of them prolonged. Approximately 15 electricity outages and 12 water outages took two days or longer to restore, with several lasting between four and six days.
The most severe water crisis occurred between late November and early December 2025, when large parts of the town were left without water for up to six consecutive days during extreme heat conditions of 41-48°C. This was driven by electricity failures at reservoirs, burst and decaying pipes, mismanaged valves, incompetence and poor operational oversight. Residents endured a town-wide loss of potable water while water visibly ran down streets.
Electricity failures were largely attributable to the collapse of end-of-life infrastructure, in some cases exceeding 40 years of age. Both wards comprising Phalaborwa town were repeatedly plunged into darkness for three to four days at a time, only for the same infrastructure to fail again shortly thereafter. Temporary repairs, combined with the absence of effective theft-prevention measures, resulted in repeat outages and wasteful emergency expenditure.
The current summer rains have further exposed the collapse of the town’s electrical system, with poles failing, joints and temporary repairs short-circuiting, arcing caused by the failure to trim vegetation, and prolonged outages resulting from poorly maintained servitudes that must first be cleared before repairs can be effected, as well as ring mains that no longer exist. Residents and businesses now face a cycle of repeated outages, often lasting days at a time.
During the same period, up to 25 distinct sewage incidents were recorded, including overflowing manholes, collapsed sewer lines, and raw sewage flowing into stormwater drains, streets, public open spaces and even into the Kruger National Park. Unlike electricity and water outages, sewage failures were seldom short-lived, often persisting for weeks and recurring at the same locations.
What began as isolated failures has now become a full-blown service delivery catastrophe. Both municipalities stand in gross violation of the basic objects of local government as enshrined in the Constitution – the inevitable outcome of decades of bad, irresponsible and corrupt ANC governance.
As local government elections approach, the people of Ba-Phalaborwa will have the opportunity to put an end to failed governance and service delivery collapse. The Democratic Alliance stands ready to provide pragmatic, progressive, responsible and caring local government.