Cost Recovery and the Crisis of Service Delivery in South Africa

THIS EDITED COLLECTION describes the situation of low-income residents in South Africa who face the loss of services due to their incapacity to pay their bills. The broader context is the increasing involvement of private companies in water services and the strong emphasis by both public and private agencies on cost-recovery. The government has sought to increase affordable access through a number of measures, including a basic level of free “lifeline” provision, and the book provides some information on the effectiveness of such measures.

The book begins and ends with overview chapters. The introduction considers changes in South African policies towards basic utilities, and the first chapter focuses on the policy of cost-recovery. The following six chapters look at specific problems faced by residents in a number of different settlements: Fort Beaufort, Queenstown, Stutterheim, Diepkloof (Soweto), Madlebe (KwaZulu-Natal), Khayelitsha, Constantia, and smaller towns in the Northern Cape. The authors provide mainly qualitative information about the nature of problems that residents have experienced, together with descriptions of the perspectives of utility providers and the local councils. The penultimate chapter emphasizes the extent of the problem (an estimated 10 million South Africans who have had their water cut off for non-payment of services bills), and provides information on household attitudes to water prices, affordability, cost-recovery and subsidies. The final chapter discusses whether or not water should be considered to be a commodity, and explores some of the consequences of this approach.