South Africa's water purification and wastewater treatment plants continue to crumble, wasting dam-loads of clean water, polluting rivers and raising health risks.

Don't ask us to build more dams -- fix your leaking pipes first. That was the blunt message to municipalities across South Africa from a senior Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) official on Tuesday, 31 March, when the department released three audit reports on the declining state of South Africa's water and wastewater treatment plants.

Anet Muir, chief director of water use compliance monitoring and enforcement, said the volume of water leaking from old or damaged pipes in Gauteng (431 million cubic metres per annum) was now almost equivalent to the entire volume of purified tap water supplied to the Western Cape (464 million cubic metres per annum).

More than 35% of purified tap water (296 million cubic metres per annum) is gushing out of leaking pipes in KwaZulu-Natal -- just slightly less than the entire volume of purified water supplied to the province of Limpopo every year (297 million cubic metres per annum).

The Blue Drop progress report also revealed which province's residents were responsible for the most water consumption. Gauteng is leading, consuming 243 litres per capita per day, while the national average is 215.

Although no detailed city or town data on non-revenue water was provided...