The cholera deaths in Hammanskraal "are a dark mark on our democratic dispensation", Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Minister Thembi Nkadimeng has said.

Nkadimeng was delivering her department’s budget vote address on Friday morning, as the 21st death from cholera in Hammanskraal was announced.

The number of "laboratory-confirmed" cases of cholera, which were being treated at Jubilee Memorial Hospital in Hammanskraal, had now risen to 44, the Gauteng health department said.

"The developments in Hammanskraal are a dark mark on our democratic dispensation. And as Cogta, we respectfully express firstly our condolences to those families who have lost their loved ones, but needless to say, the cholera outbreak could have been avoided,” Nkadimeng told a mini-plenary of the National Assembly.

She said her department’s "systematic response", which had already been approved, would include a water resilience plan, which would form the foundation of a bulk water supply and wastewater treatment plant infrastructure, rehabilitation, and energy efficiency interventions within the water regulation and sewerage system.

During the debate, Economic Freedom Fighters MP Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi, in reference to the cholera deaths in Hammanskraal, said: "This could have been prevented if we had a proper, functional government.

“What the Hammanskraal situation shows to our people is the corrupt, incompetent and lack of visionary government. Many will die unnecessary deaths because of the corruption of the ANC [African National Congress], and the racism of the DA [Democratic Alliance], in Tswhane.

“If South Africans don’t kick the ANC out of power in the elections next year, we’ll regret it for generations to come,” she said of the party that governs alongside her own in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni.

African Christian Democratic Party Marie Sukers said the cholera outbreak was evidence that the state lacked capacity. She added that there was a "very real threat of cholera on the towns surrounding the Vaal".