Editing Water supply and sanitation in South Africa (section)

===Free basic water===
South Africa has introduced a policy of free basic services, including water, electricity and solid waste collection. As part of that policy, every household is to receive the first 6 cubic meters per month for free. The policy was introduced gradually since 2000 within the means of each municipality.<ref>{{cite web|last=Mike Muller|title=Free basic water – a sustainable instrument for a sustainable future in South Africa|url=http://eau.sagepub.com/content/20/1/67.full.pdf+html|work=Environment and Urbanization 2008, 20:67|access-date=8 September 2012}}</ref> Each municipality decides if free basic water is made available to everyone or only to the poor. Most municipalities provide free basic water to all or almost all their residents. In 2012 the program reached 86% of all households.<ref>Department of Water Affairs:[http://www.dwaf.gov.za/FreeBasicWater/ Free Basic Water Project:Implementation Status], as of 31 August 2012. Retrieved 8 September 2010. Out of 152 water services authorities, 10 provide free basic water to all their residents and 142 to most. The city of [[EThekwini Metropolitan Municipality|eThekwini]] provides free basic water to 99% of households in its service area and the municipalities in the Gauteng area to 90%.</ref>

Based on an average consumption of 5 cubic meters of free water per household and month, an estimated 8 million beneficiary households, and an estimated water supply cost of 4 Rand per cubic meter, the annual cost of the policy can be estimated at 2bn Rand (US$280m). This corresponds to about 0.1% of [[GDP]] in 2011, or about 0.25% of government expenditures. Another estimate puts the cost of free basic water at 5.84 Rand per capita per month, which corresponds to 2.2bn Rand per year.<ref name="WRC Rural"/>

Out of the 32 million people that received free basic water in 2005, almost half, or 15 million, were not poor. Furthermore, many poor in rural areas, who receive limited amounts of water for free through standpipes, do not benefit fully. Those without access to publicly provided water do not benefit at all from the program.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Mosdell, T. and A. Leatt|title=On Tap: A Review of the Free Basic Water Policy|journal=In: Towards a Mean to Live: Targeting Poverty Alleviation to Make Children's Rights Real|year=2005|issue=Children's Institute, University of Cape Town|pages=25}}</ref> The policy is more successful in wealthier municipalities, which have the ability to cross-subsidise water provision for the poor, than in poorer, often rural municipalities. This is one of the reasons why in 2009 the government announced it would review its implementation strategy for free basic water, possibly through registers of poor users.<ref name="GWI">The price of free water in South Africa, in:Global Water Intelligence, August 2009, p. 31</ref>

As part of this review process, Durban has now changed its implementation of the free basic water policy: Households living in properties that are valued above a certain threshold now must prove that their income is below the poverty limit, in order to continue to receive free basic water. The reason for the change was that most of those benefiting from free basic water were not poor. They used less than amount of free basic water – 9 cubic meters per month in the case of Durban – for the simple reason that there were two or less residents in the household.<ref name=Galvin/>