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The town of Welcome to the Free State is being flooded with sewage as its multi-billion dollar wastewater treatment plant has been offline due to collapsing infrastructure and the municipality’s staggering debt to Eskom.
The city, which falls under Matjhabeng Municipality and has a population of about 400,000, has received qualified audits from the Auditor General, and now the provincial government has stepped in to try to bring the city back from the brink of financial collapse.
The municipality owes a staggering R14 billion to Eskom and Vaal Central Water because its water and electricity distribution is operating at a loss. The municipality recorded losses of R418 million and R204 million in water and electricity distribution in 2025.
The country is also saddled with R26 million in legal costs, mainly due to default judgments relating to services, because it has no litigation strategy, according to the province.
Eskom told the Sunday Times that the municipality had failed to meet the national Treasury’s demands for debt relief.
“Eskom has undertaken several interventions to recover outstanding debts,” the power company said.
“The municipality was accepted into the National Treasury’s debt forgiveness program on November 1, 2023. However, the municipality did not meet the requirements of the program, which [to pay] bulk electricity bills in full within 30 days and [prevent] further delayed growth.
“Eskom has offered the municipality an advance payment arrangement, [but] no response was received. In 2025, Eskom got engaged [with] the mayor and aldermen … to help the municipality achieve technical and financial sustainability in their electricity company, [but] There has been no positive response on this point.”
As a result, people in Welcome are forced to dodge sewage that has spilled into the streets and sidewalks to get to shops, police stations, schools and clinics – all amid an unbearable stench.
Among those affected is the prestigious 18-hole Oppenheimer Park Golf Club, which receives its water from the Witpan Dam next to the local Harmony Gold Mining Company mine.
“There is a terrible stench because our sprinklers for the golf course are drawing water from the dam, and we have raised this with Harmony because we lease the land from them. [Harmony] We will test the water on Monday, because for us this is just sewage water,” says club manager Suria Faxelhas.
In 2022, an estimated R3.2 billion was committed through a ministerial intervention by the Department of Water and Sanitation to solve the municipality’s wastewater problems.
The Sunday Times understands from municipal insiders that the department has completed the wastewater projects and handed them over to the municipality, but Eskom has put the brakes on the treatment plants over the unpaid billions.
Sewage treatment plants require a consistent, 24/7 supply of electricity to power air compressors and pumps that facilitate the biological treatment process of wastewater. But the municipality claims that not all projects have been completed and that is why the city is still covered in sewage.
To add to the problems for the municipality, Vaal Central Water – which supplies the municipality with water – has implemented water reductions between 6pm and 6am.
“What you see is a municipality that has collapsed, despite billions of rands being spent on projects to improve infrastructure. People have been exposed to sewage everywhere on the streets for the past five years and water leaks are creating a stink. We have had to take matters into our own hands, and it won’t take long for us to solve some of these problems,” said Table Masunyane, chairman of the citizens’ movement Gatvol in Welcome.
People get sick because water is contaminated. Sewage is spilled all over the city, and it is worse in the townships. — Tabile Masunyane, Gatvol citizen movement
He said the group had repeatedly approached the municipality for money so they could clear stormwater channels and repair sewage leaks that damaged roads and caused odors, but to no avail.
“People are getting sick because the water is contaminated. Sewage is being spilled all over the city, and in the townships it is even worse,” Masunyane said.
When the Sunday Times visited Welcome, Masunyane and his team were clearing sewage near the police station amid an unbearable stench.
Last October, Free State Finance MEC Moses Makume approved a financial recovery plan after the provincial government passed a resolution to intervene in the crisis.
“The intervention [will end] when the crisis in the financial affairs of the municipality is resolved, and the ability of the municipality to meet its obligations to provide basic services or secure its financial obligations,” the province said in its status report to the portfolio committee on water and sanitation.
According to the report, the provincial government has found that there is little maintenance of infrastructure, which has led to “excessive sewage and water leaks.”
The city has seen its legal bill skyrocket, with several companies, such as Nashua and Checkers, suing the city for recurring sewage leaks on their properties. Nashua’s manager, Eddie Breytenbach, said the city was cleaning up spills on their property as of Friday.
Matjhabeng spokesman Tshediso Tlali promised to comment on a series of questions sent to him by the Sunday Times, but had not done so at the time of going to press.
Thanduxolo Jika
www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za
