By Adonis Byemelwa
In some areas of Dar es Salaam, water flows down the streets, glistening in the sun, a visible sign for residents that taps are running again after days without. Children wade through it, vendors walk around it, and some stay-at-home families calmly read its signs as the new relief. However, to water experts and regulators, those streams are a different story: not abundance, but loss.
“It is not something to celebrate,” said Livingstone Swila, a lecturer in water supply and management. “Water going in the streets is utter wastage. It reflects inefficiency in the system.”
That tension, between development and lingering ineptitude, is woven into the fabric of Tanzania’s water sector in 2026. The nation has made much progress clearing paths to clean water, but it loses a large part of what it produces.
The latest performance reviews from Ewura make that contradiction apparent: more water is getting to people, but too much of it goes unpaid for, unmeasured or never even to the tap.
It is one of the sector’s most serious challenges, according to recent reports from the regulator (Cruz 2022), as non-revenue water, which is contributed by leaks and illegal connections to supply users who do not pay, or are metered inaccurately.
In an earlier assessment, losses were pegged at approximately 36 per cent of total supply, well above the internationally accepted threshold of 20 per cent.
In more recent revisions, the figure is even higher in some situations, exceeding 40 per cent nationally in money terms and hundreds of billions of shillings lost annually.
This is no longer simply a technical problem for policymakers. It is a matter of national resources. When Water Minister Jumaa Aweso launched the latest performance review in March 2026, he made clear where the government stood: What you lose in water, you are losing in revenue, and how effectively utility leaders curb that loss would determine their performance.
The message represents a shift from not just building out infrastructure, but making sure the things that already exist work.
That transition is apparent in the field, such as in Bunda, an increasingly populous town near Lake Victoria, where water losses have long been high. A new project to reduce leakage and increase distribution is taking place over just more than four kilometres of pipeline.
The bad news: You have done half of the job already. Local officials say the results are becoming apparent: water loss has decreased from 45 per cent to around 31 per cent, though it still costs the utility more than 600 million shillings a year.
Andrew Mathew Kundo, the deputy water minister, who recently toured the project, has drawn a firm line. “The government”, he said “, will not initiate new water schemes before completing ongoing ones.” The directive speaks to a larger concern that expansion without efficiency will exacerbate existing problems.
He also confronted another source of frustration for the public: communication. Residents have been informed for years that projects are “in progress,” but have not been given clear timelines or measurable updates.
Kundo said officials should be more transparent, and he encouraged them to avoid vague assurances by saying what percentage of projects had actually been completed.
Utilities are experimenting at the operational level with a spate of solutions. Initiatives in Bunda include replacing old pipes, swapping out broken meters and educating the public on how to protect infrastructure.
Illegal connections, by which water is siphoned off without payment, are a problematic fact of life in many urban environments. Dr Swila contends that some enforcement is likely necessary, calling for even potential financial incentives for reporting water theft.
Though infrastructure itself is a critical vulnerability, many of Tanzania’s water networks consist of old or low-durability materials that can explode easily. Dr Swila observes that older systems had metal pipes, which were more resilient but expensive to implement, while the newer plastic versions are cheaper to deploy but can be more easily ruptured. Each pipe, buried or under your feet, obvious and overlooked, adds to the slow drain of water and money.
The problem is not exclusive to Tanzania, but comparisons with other countries in Africa show what is achievable. In Rwanda, continued investment in centralised management and leak detection has kept losses relatively low.
With Namibia being one of the driest nations on the continent, it has developed a reputation for careful recycling of water and stringent measures to conserve it. Additionally, in South Africa, which has its own problems, several cities have made investments to establish advanced monitoring systems that allow them to trace their losses and curtail them promptly.
These examples suggest a common lesson: scarcity begets discipline. Where those systems view water as a limited resource, pressure tends to be higher, and losses are less tolerated. With growing urban demand and periodic droughts, Tanzania is being nudged in that direction.
In addition to leaks and theft, the country is also facing a more systemic problem: how to diversify its water sources. Dar es Salaam, the commercial capital, relies heavily on the Ruvu River.
That dependence is a vulnerability during dry periods, which forces rationing and drives up the price of households’ water. Dr Swila and other experts have urged more recourse to alternatives, including tapping the Rufiji River and smaller systems such as the Wami and Ruvu tributaries, so pressure is not all wrong on one supply line.
At the same time, the government is also working on long-term solutions: It even floated a plan for a national water grid. Put simply, such a system would link up various water sources and networks across regions so that water could be diverted where it is needed the most. Although still in the planning stages, the idea represents a shift to an interconnected and more resilient system.
Even so, with basic administration unlikely to get better, even the most ambitious plans will fall short. In some areas, billing systems are inconsistent or out of date. Some customers, according to reports from various parts of Kagera served by the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (Ruwasa), go months without receiving water bills.
This not only makes it harder to collect revenue, which is vital for social development, but also undercuts accountability, making it more difficult to follow consumption and losses.
Notwithstanding these difficulties, the wider trajectory of Tanzania’s water sector is not a story of failure. Access has greatly expanded in both urban and rural areas, reaching more than four out of five residents in some areas. Other larger projects, such as bulk supply schemes and rural distribution networks, continue to bring water closer to communities that previously didn’t have it.
The question now is whether it can turn from expansion to efficiency.” Ewura’s reports indicate that this next phase will need stricter oversight, better technology and a stronger culture of accountability. Utilities, meanwhile, are being ranked, compared and in some instances publicly recognised for performance, exerting both pressure and incentive to improve.
Back on Dar es Salaam’s streets, the sight of running water alongside a sidewalk may still cause a quick gasp of relief. Still, as the country works to achieve universal access, that image is slowly being redefined. It no longer simply signifies the return of water. It is a reminder of just how much is still being lost, and how far we have left to go in the effort to make sure every drop counts.
