South Africa has secured a loan of up to $1 billion from the New Development Bank to help rebuild the water, electricity and sanitation networks that keep its biggest cities running.
The BRICS-backed lender, headquartered in Shanghai, approved the facility on 17 June. It will bankroll projects under the government's Programme for the Upgrade of Infrastructure in Metropolitan Municipalities, channelling money into all eight of the country's metros.
Where the money lands
Buffalo City, Cape Town, Ekurhuleni, eThekwini, Johannesburg, Mangaung, Nelson Mandela Bay and Tshwane are all in line for support. The funds are earmarked for upgrades to water supply, sanitation, electricity distribution and solid waste services that, between them, reach more than 22 million residents, close to a third of the population.
The loan does not stand alone. It tops up the R54 billion, around $3 billion, in performance-based grants the National Treasury announced in March, part of a wider push to tie municipal funding to measurable improvements in service delivery rather than handing cash over with no strings attached.
A familiar problem
The timing underlines just how deep South Africa's municipal infrastructure hole has become. Decades of underinvestment and patchy maintenance have left pipes leaking, substations failing and waste systems buckling, the same rot that sees nearly half the country's treated water lost before it reaches a tap.
Whether an injection of foreign capital changes that will come down to execution. Performance-based grants and external loans only become working taps and reliable power if municipalities can plan, procure and build, areas where many have struggled for years. For now, the NDB's commitment buys South Africa's cities time, and a fighting chance to arrest the decline.
