SA is teetering on the proverbial precipice as communities yearn for high-quality water to give meaning to the mantra “water is life”.
From rural communities of Ka-Homu in Giyani, who have lived in hope of running water in their yards for years, to threats of water-shedding in Johannesburg, the threat of water running out is real.
At the centre of this threat are four issues: long-term lamentation, corruption within the water value chain, dysfunctional municipalities and inadequate oversight that is only concerned with protecting wrongdoing.
The drafters of SA’s constitution realised the importance of the legislature’s oversight role and entrenched about 40 provisions to enable executive oversight. This authority and obligation given to the legislature to oversee the exercise of public power and ensure executive accountability must be taken seriously. It remains an indictment on parliament that the Zondo state capture commission highlighted that the institution failed to implement its constitutional obligation.
The war on leaks debacle, the Hammanskraal cholera outbreak and the Giyani Water Project are just a few examples of how we have failed the people. But the rot stops here. The seventh parliament’s portfolio committee on water and sanitation is committed to changing the trajectory and ensuring accountability.
The recent committee meeting on progress implementing remedial measures on the Rooiwal Waste Water Treatment Works was the first among many future engagements to ensure accountability. The committee will next tackle the decay at the Amatola Water Board in the Eastern Cape. The people of SA demand a functional legislative arm that keeps the executive accountable. We will not fail — we dare not fail in this important obligation.
Without an effective legislature corruption will continue to rob our country of the potential water has of unlocking greater economic activity. The Giyani Water Project illustrates the direct negative effect of corruption on communities. Because of corruption, a project that was budgeted at about R90m to connect 55 villages has now ballooned to over R4bn, and some of those villages have not been connected to reliable and quality water even though the Nandoni Dam is full. Taps are dry, and companies are raking in millions to truck water to communities facing water shortages.
The department has committed to enhanced consequence management. While this is welcomed, without prosecutions of those involved in wrongdoing those commitments will ring like hollow promises in the eyes of residents. The cost escalation in the Giyani Water Project could have been used to connect more villages to water.
The water value chain depends on the system seamlessly functioning from source to tap. Yet one of the most important chains in the system is broken. Most municipalities have failed to implement section 152 of the constitution, which specifies the objects of the local sphere of government. The Blue Drop Report released by the department of water & sanitation found that 46% of all water supply systems pose acute human risk because of bacteria and other pathogens.
Worse, the report also found that 67.6% of all water treatment works are close to failure. Without functional wastewater treatment works our rivers continue to be over-run by effluent spillages that kill natural wildlife and the ecology of our rivers. Corrupt businesses are making handsome profits by overcharging on water cleaning chemicals. This is a vicious cycle of corruption and looting at the expense of the people, many poor and vulnerable.
It is now more urgent than ever to get municipalities to function optimally and provide adequate and quality water and sanitation services. Delaying this critical intervention could be the straw that finally breaks the camel’s back.
The greatest enemy of SA’s progress is the country’s affinity with lamentation and lack of action. The country has been force-fed the same excuse of a lack of skills within the local sphere of government to run a water and sanitation system. To this day there has not been a tangible programme to address this critical skills shortage. Technical vocational education and training colleges that have the potential to provide the much-needed skills are not supported.
In many cases, lecturers are not adequately capacitated to deliver quality graduates. The fact that the country has entities such as the Water Research Commission with innovative technologies and insight that can resolve many of the current challenges but are underused, is a tendency we must urgently discard.
As the wheels of the seventh parliament’s portfolio committee on water and sanitation turn, their effectiveness should be judged by improved access to reliable and quality water and sanitation, demanding increased accountability and consequence management from those inclined to corruption and ensuring better project management that delivers projects timely and within budget.
The task is enormous and will be difficult, but it is not insurmountable. It demands greater focus and a commitment to service. After all, this is what citizens who voted for us in this legislature expect and demand. We dare not fail them.
• Basson, a DA MP, chairs the portfolio committee on water and sanitation.
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