Durban — Mostly rural areas in KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West, Free State and the Northern Cape were areas experiencing water shortages.
That was according to Minister of Water and Sanitation Senzo Mchunu, who was responding to a parliamentary written question from the IFP’s Sbuyiselwe Buthelezi, who had asked Mchunu what areas his department identified, nationally, as being the most affected by the water crisis and likely to have major water and sanitation issues, and plans his department has in place to prevent day zero.
“Areas experiencing water shortages are mostly rural areas in the provinces of the Eastern Cape, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State and the Northern Cape,” Mchunu said.
He said that, additionally, 32% of households in South Africa do not have access to a reliable service due to dilapidated infrastructure as well as lack of proper operations and maintenance of existing infrastructure, which results in disruptions and shortage of water supply.
“Access to sanitation services is less than 85% in six provinces, including in the Free State (82.3%), KZN (80.9%), Limpopo (63.7%), North West (68.8%), Mpumalanga (63.7%), and Northern Cape (83.9%). Access in the provinces of Limpopo, Mpumalanga and North West are below the national average at 82.1%. In the efforts to remedy these challenges, the DWS will be submitting a National Sanitation Framework to Cabinet for approval,” Mchunu said.
The framework seeks to:
- Revise the national norms and standards for sanitation and provide for equitable sanitation provision across all settlement types,
- Strengthen monitoring and compliance with the standards, and
- Sets out measures to improve service delivery such as support in various forms to address service delivery lapses.
Mchunu said that in order to prevent day zero, the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) is in the process of planning and implementing a range of major projects to augment national bulk water resource infrastructure and is in the process of establishing the National Water Resource Infrastructure Agency to finance and implement the large-scale investments in national water resource infrastructure that are required to ensure that South Africa has sufficient bulk water supply now and in future. The use of groundwater, desalination of seawater and rainwater harvesting are also being implemented to address local water requirements.
“The DWS will strengthen its role in supporting and intervening in municipalities where water and sanitation services are failing, in conjunction with provinces, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, National Treasury and the South African Local Government Association. This will be done in the spirit of cooperative governance in the Constitution to avoid creating intergovernmental conflict,” Mchunu said.
The service delivery improvement plan will include:
- Optimal use of the legislative framework.
- Reconfiguration of water boards.
- Positioning of reconfigured Boards to work closely with municipalities with regards to ensuring capacity for service delivery.
- Development and implementation of rolling plans for providing support and intervention for water and sanitation services to municipalities, drawing on a range of national support programmes.
- Partnerships with the private sector that includes funding as well as technical and managerial expertise.
Meanwhile, in less than two weeks, from August 15 to 19, the South African Human Rights Commission will host its KZN Inquiry on access to water in Durban.
The commission said that in recent years, the provincial office had been inundated with complaints about access to water in various districts in the province, which remains a day-to-day challenge for many across the province.
“Most municipalities’ responses to the complaints are inadequate in that they are unable to provide appropriate and sustainable redress to the communities,” the commission said.
“As such, these complaints amount to a violation of the basic human right to sufficient clean water and, given its far-reaching impact on affected communities, there is a need for a strategic intervention to address these challenges.”
The aim of the inquiry is to determine whether water service authorities in KZN have violated residents’ rights to access clean drinking water as provided for in national legislation as well as in the Constitution, and if so, what interventions are being implemented by the state to resolve and prevent the recurrence of the violations.
Daily News