Minister of Water and Sanitation Pemmy Majodina says the time for talk is over, vowing that municipalities that fail to properly manage water and sanitation will bear the consequences.

The Minister of Water and Sanitation, Pemmy Majodina, and her senior officials have read the riot act to failing municipalities, threatening to hand over some of their functions to more competent bodies; to withhold municipal grant funds and to call in the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to probe corruption by council officials and local "water mafias".

"The time for excuses is over. [...] Deliver, or we will intervene," was the blunt message from Majodina and her two deputies (David Mahlobo and Sello Seitlholo) to errant municipalities at a meeting at Gallagher Estate in Midrand on 10 April.

While there has been similar tough talk before (sometimes behind the scenes), the department has now bared some of its financial and administrative teeth in public, warning that the government will tighten the purse strings when distributing grant funding to municipalities that fail to pay their bills from the water boards that provide them with potable tap water.

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Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) director-general, Dr Sean Phillips, noted that roughly two-thirds of the municipalities that receive bulk water from water boards were reportedly not paying current invoices in full.

"With regards to the debts owed by municipalities to the water boards, National...