Local authorities in South Africa have responded to the post-apartheid promise of redistribution and democratisation by adopting market principles in the delivery of essential services. This article examines a five-year period (1997-2001) of intense local government restructuring in Cape Town, using water distribution as a case study. The focus is upon two cost-recovery policies, underinvestment in infrastructure and water cutoffs, which have been central to a five-year commercialisation process in the water sector. The impact of cost-recovery policies on low-income communities living in the townships is examined in light of the South African government's twin goals of achieving distributional and procedural equity in service delivery. The findings reveal that historical inequities produced through territorial variation in service delivery under apartheid are being recreated through contemporary 'basic needs' approaches and that historically entrenched service debts are leading to widespread water cutoffs (160 000 in 3 years). Both of these cost-recovery policies create local government inefficiencies in the management of water distribution as a public good.
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