HEALTH AND SANITATION
37
What chances for government’s
new water plan?
South Africa is suffering from severe short-sightedness.
We don’t seem to be able to see problems coming until
they hit us in the face.
By Mike Muller
That’s what happened with our electricity. The
conditions which led to the crisis were evident as
far back as the early 2000s, as Cabinet dallied about
what kind of power stations to build next — and
who would build them.
But no one took notice until there was load-shedding
— and then it was mostly because it affected people
in the cities with wild traffic jams and cooking by
candlelight. The fact that, for many South Africans,
candles and uncertain power were already the ‘normal’,
passed us by.
While the country reels from its latest electricity crisis,
attempts are being made to deal with a similarly serious
issue: the water crises that are popping up all over the
country. But because they haven’t, so far, affected people
in the big cities (well, Cape Town was the exception, but it
always has been), there has been much less interest.
That was evident at a preparatory meeting last month
to discuss the water sector’s Operation Phakisa,
government’s attempt to get all the role players in the
water sector together to agree on who is going to do
what to tackle the critical problems.
Business was there, agriculture was there, even NGOs
were present. But, conspicuous by their absence, were
the municipalities, which is where some of the worst
problems lie, and the provincial government, which is
supposed to oversee them.
The lesson from Cape Town’s Day Zero debacle was
that, even if you have a national department giving
the right advice, when it comes to water supply and
sanitation services, it takes a municipality to implement
it. If that can’t be taken for granted in Cape Town, then it
is hardly surprising that when you drive out, whether on
the N1 (think Beaufort West, Brandfort, and Winburg) or
www.plumbingafrica.co.za
the N2 (Port Elizabeth, Grahamstown/Makhanda, and the
Transkei) you are as likely to find dry taps as water.
To his credit, Minister of Water and Sanitation Gugile
Nkwinti has kept his eye on the ball. He has been busy
clearing up the mess he inherited at the department.
And he has recognised that the water crisis facing
South African towns and cities has to be dealt with in a
systematic way. One early step has been to ask the DBSA
and TCTA to take over management of the department’s
water projects. But that is just one part of the picture.
The failure of the department under the administration
of Nomvula Mokonyane and her predecessors has left
a huge amount to do to implement the country’s water
laws and, even more important, to ensure that people —
and particularly municipalities — obey them.
Mike Muller
Mike Muller is a
professional civil engineer
and a visiting professor
at the Wits School of
Governance. Now out of
government, he raises
issues that his former
colleagues cannot.
This is what the water Phakisa is supposed to address.
Minister Nkwinti inherited his department’s so-called
Water Supply and Sanitation Master Plan from his
predecessor. While it contains some useful items, it is
far too long and complicated to be doable. One suspects
that this was deliberate, to give certain politicians and
officials a menu to choose from. Given more than 70 big
priorities and thousands of individual actions, they could
do what suited them, not what was most important.
The water Phakisa is supposed to set priorities and then
get people busy fixing them. It has the support of the
national Cabinet. But it will need someone with energy
and staying power to drive it.
So, the big question is whether the initiative will survive
the change in government. Minister Nkwinti, who is well
past 70, has declined nomination to Parliament. Will his
successor be willing to pick up his predecessor’s plan?
And will s/he have the commitment and the ability to
make it work? PA
May 2019 Volume 25 I Number 3