Water bodies
An in-depth look at the roles of the players, coaches and
referees in South Africa’s water sector.
By Helgard Muller, Pr. Eng.
M
functions and responsibilities in the
water sector.
Water Sector leader: This role is
claimed by the Department of Water
and Sanitation (DWS) with a mandate
clearly set out in the National Water
Act (Act 36 of 1998) and the Water
Services Act (Act 108 of 1997). DWS
has a number of very important
functions, such as to set a clear
water policy, to monitor and regulate
and to plan and manage national
water resources.
A major problem is that DWS has
taken on too many jobs – some even
conflicting. For example, first: DWS
should have let go of managing and
running national infrastructure,
such as big dams and water transfer
schemes, years ago, and hived it
off to an agency, in the same way
as SANRAL from the Department of
Transport. A heavy focus by DWS on
doing jobs for municipalities means
those strategic functions such as
regulation and planning are grossly
neglected.
Second, the high value principles
for a public entity as captured in
the SA Constitution are currently
y own broad definition of the
water sector would be to
include all involved in some
or other way with water in their daily
working life: officials in government
departments, municipalities, plumbers,
engineers, scientists, researchers,
contractors, private sector companies,
NGOs, academics, institutions, and
many more, including you as reader of
this magazine. So, the water sector is
big and diverse.
Let us focus in this article on those
‘in authority’ that are mandated
by legislation to take on certain
The Gariep Dam is near the town of Norvalspont, bordering the Free State and Eastern Cape provinces.
Its primary purpose is for irrigation, domestic and industrial use as well as for power generation.
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Water Sewage & Effluent November/December 2017