The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), in collaboration with the Vaal-Orange Catchment Management Agency, has proposed new raw water abstraction tariff/charges for the new financial year of 2025/26 for domestic and industry water users, and the irrigation and forestry sectors.

The new proposed tariffs and charges were tabled by the Gauteng DWS during a three-day public consultation with water user stakeholders, held from 23 to 26 July 2024 in Klerksdorp (North West), Bethlehem (Free State) and Pretoria (Gauteng).

The Vaal-Orange Water Management Area (WMA) includes the Vaal river and the Orange river, and cuts across Mpumalanga, Gauteng, the North West, Free State, the Eastern Cape and the Northern Cape.

The Vaal-Orange WMA also plays a cross-boundary role through its impact on international water sharing. It has an impact on Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Eswatini.

For domestic and industry users, a tariff of 1.98c/m³ was proposed for the Orange WMA for the 2025/26 financial year, an increase of 5% from 1.89c/m³ last year, while the tariff for the Vaal WMA will remain unchanged at 3.11c/m³.

The tariffs for the irrigation sector in both the Vaal and Orange WMAs are to remain unchanged at 2.64c/m³ and 1.15c/m³ respectively, with the charges capped by the April Producer Price Index (PPI) of 5.1% for charges that exceed 1.5c/m³ from the previous financial year.

Meanwhile, it was proposed that the 2.64c/m³ tariff for the forestry sector remain unchanged for both the WMAs, with the charge capped at R10/ha plus PPI.

The purpose of the consultations was to get inputs from different stakeholders within the water sector, including municipalities, before the final approval of the proposed charges by the Water and Sanitation Minister as mandated by the National Water Act.

The DWS has also proposed tariff increases for the discharge of waste into water resources, determined according to the department’s Waste Discharge Charge System, which aims to promote sustainable development and efficient use of water resources, the internalisation of environmental costs by polluters, to encourage the use of water resources in a more optimal way and to recover costs associated with mitigating water quality impacts of waste discharge.

For both Vaal and Orange WMAs, a single tariff of 2.79c/m³ was proposed for the waste-related water resource management charge, which will result in a decrease of 5% from the previous tariff for the Vaal WMA and an increase of 27% from the previous Orange WMA tariff.

The tariff increases will affect the main water users in the industrial, urban, mining and irrigation (agriculture) within the Vaal-Orange WMA. The largest economic contributors in the Orange River regions are the mining and irrigated agriculture sectors.

The tariffs will also affect the three main water boards in the domestic and industrial sectors, namely Rand Water, Magalies Water and Vaal Central Water, as well as municipalities in Gauteng, Free State, the North West, the Eastern Cape and the Northern Cape as key users in the water sector.