Water is the New Struggle

Extract from article by: Jocelyn Newmarch

Johannesburg — MUNICIPALITIES are struggling to provide basic water and sanitation services to all consumers, and maintenance of facilities has been dangerously neglected, infrastructure experts warn.

Without a greater focus on collecting and treating water for reuse, SA's future water security will be under threat.

This was highlighted yesterday by agricultural union TAU-SA, which warned that government would carry the burden if farmers were forced to curb production due to polluted water.

The union's deputy president, Louis Meintjes, says the government, which holds the exclusive constitutional custodianship of SA's water resources, must implement effective measures to counter the pollution of water systems to avoid loss of food production.

Contaminated food, produced with the use of water that contains poisonous heavy metals, chemicals and waste material, has been reaching the shelves of supermarkets.

Meintjies admits that farmers are also responsible for pollution by the "ill-informed" application of fertilisers and poisons. He says the union has raised concern about polluted water resources, but had been ignored by, among others, the water affairs minister. "It fell on deaf ears."

Another problem is the lack of skills in water provision, particularly at the municipal level.

Neil Macleod, eThekwini municipality's head of water and sanitation, says there are fewer than 1400 engineering professionals in local government. Many in leadership positions have risen rapidly through the ranks, resulting in a skills gap.

The Development Bank of Southern Africa hosted a dialogue on municipal water service s recently. Its report warns that there has been an overemphasis on water delivery at the expense of demand management, and that better asset management is needed.

"The deterioration in water services and the way in which delivery is proceeding will have serious implications (for) people's lives, health and wellbeing, growth and development prospects, and national water security," the bank warns. Water leakages and faulty pipes result, in some instances, in 60% of treated and purified water not being delivered to consumers, says Mr Macleod, who helped to draft the report.

Municipalities should concentrate on reducing water losses to 15% -20%, which is attainable in a developing country, he says.

Municipalities need to focus on accurate billing for the water they provide, and collecting the money owed. "If you're only collecting 60% of what you're owed, and only billing for 60% of what you provide, it doesn't take a genius to work out you're only collecting a fraction of what is owed to you."

Illegal connections to the water main are another problem, Mr Macleod says. eThekwini has about 650 000 customers connected to its network, and estimates it has up to 30 000 illegal connections. This practice is widespread in affluent suburbs and among businesses.

The development bank report says the cost of meeting service targets is far higher than infrastructure investment projections assumed in the 1990s.

Part of the problem is that in a country marked by extreme poverty and glaring inequality, the living standards of an affluent minority set the benchmark for what is considered decent services, the report says.

This means there is a growing need for operating subsidies for sustainable water services.

"It is clear, when reviewing the path of water service delivery over the first decade of democracy and beyond, how ambitious the plans are, and how much it was underestimated what it takes to provide decent water services to all, and deliver on commitments," the report says.

Funding is not a key issue in the sector. "Rather, it is the current inefficiencies that obstruct the ability to spend what we do have and to make these funds work better ... and this is a far more complex issue to resolve," it says.

With Sapa



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