Industry Overview
INDUSTRY JOURNAL Vol . 8
Industry Overview
Wastewater Management
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When Nomvula Mokonyane decided to suspend the Blue and Green Drop reporting system , she unleashed a fog of suspicion over the safety and security of our national water supply .
After Senzo Mchunu became Minister of Water , he promised to reinstate the same reporting system , and information now emerging paints a bleak picture of a water sector in deep crisis . That slow-onset disaster has many dimensions to it , so today we are going to focus only on the wastewater aspect , to empower readers to make their own decisions .
When Minister Mchunu reinstated the Green Drop Report , we learned that we have 824 municipal wastewater treatment works , located in 850 municipalities , almost 40 % of which are dysfunctional . This is relevant in the context of the alarming fact that a quarter of all municipalities are now ranked as being at ‘ critical risk ’ from a financial viability perspective . All are generally facing a leadership crisis , often with unstable coalition government in the larger metros . All provinces are affected , but the most critical are the Northern and Eastern Cape , Free State , Limpopo , Northwest and Mpumalanga . This is a provincial aggregate , which hides the fact that even in the provinces not mentioned , there are
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