By Nellie Peyton and Wendell Roelf
CAPE TOWN, Feb 12 (Reuters) - South Africa will deploy the army to fight organised crime and lay criminal charges against municipal officials who fail to deliver water to communities, President Cyril Ramaphosa said in an address to parliament on Thursday.
Endemic crime and water shortages are among the issues that most anger voters, as South Africa approaches municipal elections later this year in which the co-ruling African National Congress (ANC) is expected to see its share of the vote slide further.
Violent crime has made South Africa one of the world's most dangerous peacetime countries, with an average of more than 20,000 murders a year in a country of about 63 million people.
CRIME IN THE SPOTLIGHT
"Organised crime is now the most immediate threat to our democracy, our society and our economic development," Ramaphosa told lawmakers in his State of the Nation Address.
"Our primary focus this year is on stepping up the fight against organised crime and criminal syndicates."
Crime has been in the spotlight partly because of attacks by U.S. President Donald Trump, who confronted Ramaphosa at a White House meeting last year with false claims that white people were facing a genocide in South Africa.
Most victims of crime are Black.
Ramaphosa said soldiers would be deployed initially in the Western Cape and Gauteng, two provinces badly affected by gang violence, and that he had directed the minister of police and army to work out further details within days.
PROTESTS AT WATER SHORTAGES
"Water outages are a symptom of a local government system that is not working," he said of the worsening water crisis that is the result of a drying climate and consistent failures to maintain water pipes.
"We will hold to account those who neglect their responsibility to supply water to our people".
Residents of the biggest city Johannesburg held scattered protests this week after taps had been dry in some neighbourhoods for more than 20 days.
Ramaphosa, who became head of state in 2018, has led South Africa's first-ever coalition government since June 2024, when the ANC lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since ending apartheid 30 years earlier.
The coalition, which includes the pro-business Democratic Alliance, has helped restore confidence in Africa's largest economy.
Chronic power cuts have subsided and financial markets rallied last year. But widespread, persistent unemployment has not improved and the government is under pressure to show it can improve service delivery.
(Additional reporting by Anathi Madubela, Sfundo Parakozov and Alexander Winning;Editing by Tim Cocks and Chizu Nomiyama )
