HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING IN SOUTH AFRICA TODAY

Wed 01 April 2026:

Here’s what’s happening in South Africa today:

◼️ Health risks exposed in SA’s latest water report cards: 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). These challenges were compounded by “organised criminality, corruption, vandalism, attacks on critical water and energy infrastructure, and infrastructure decay.”
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-03-31-leaking-pipes-filthy-rivers-and-health-risks-exposed-in-sas-latest-water-report-cards-/

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◼️ Bad news for Eskom customers: Direct customers of Eskom will face higher electricity costs starting Wednesday. The utility has rolled out an 8.7% tariff increase for the 2026/27 financial year, which was approved earlier this month by the energy regulator, Nersa.
https://www.enca.com/news-top-stories/price-hike-direct-eskom-customers

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◼️ Deeper lifestyle audits for senior officials: The SIU recommended its own methodology. The SIU mandates that public servants provide detailed financial documentation, which includes three years of bank statements and records for mortgages, vehicle financing, cryptocurrency accounts, trust accounts, and corporate financials. Investigators verify this information by cross-referencing it with external databases, such as the CIPC (to identify business directorships), eNaTIS (to track vehicle ownership), and Windeed (for property records).
https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/855250/deeper-lifestyle-audits-for-senior-officials-are-coming/

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◼️ More than half of SA’s children still face multiple deprivations: Children in non-urban areas were more than four times more likely to face multiple simultaneous deprivations than those in urban settlements, and those in non-metropolitan municipalities were consistently worse off than their counterparts in cities. Children in households classified as monetarily poor were nearly twice as likely to be multidimensionally deprived.
https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/more-than-half-of-sas-children-still-face-multiple-deprivations-stats-sa/

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◼️ New rules for residential estates in SA about visitor data: This includes residential estates and sectional title schemes, lifestyle estates and gated communities, bodies corporate and homeowner associations (HOAs), commercial or industrial parks, and office parks. “The big shift is from ‘collect everything, just in case’ to ‘collect only what you really need,’” ATG writes in a new guide for estates and complexes to manage POPIA compliance.
https://mybroadband.co.za/news/security/637213-new-rules-for-residential-estates-in-south-africa-about-visitor-data.html

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