From Conservation Crime to Cholera: Reflecting on the Environmental and Social Consequences of South Africa’s Undermanaged and Intensifying Wastewater Crisis

The worsening state of municipal wastewater and sewage treatment (under/mis)management in South Africa can be regarded as the most significant vector to the bounteous pollution and social challenges being experienced in many parts of the country as well as being a principal contributor to environmental and human health problems. The aim of this review is to expose the state’s incapacity to fulfil its basic mandate at all three levels of governance (national, regional, and local), to effectively protect the rights and property of all persons (natural and juridical) and promote economic growth by dint of amplifying the transactional distance between the government and its citizenry. This state of affairs is procreated only by the State’s surrendered disregard for vulnerable natural resources. This article provides a philosophic overview of the environmental/social and service delivery disconnect between government and the proletariat realised by this tortuous and insular ‘approach’. It places in perspective the increasingly abstruse interface between ductile wastewater (under/mis)management (irreverence), on the one hand, and the enviro-social impact (victimisation) thereof, on the other and cautions against the continual application of unacceptable service delivery and flourishing malfeasance/ incompetence.