The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) has resuscitated the Blue Drop Certification Programme to intensify regulation and monitoring of the municipalities to ensure that all municipalities provide drinking water that is safe for human consumption. The Blue Drop Certification ensures that municipalities are assessed on all regulatory requirements with the intention for municipalities to put mechanisms in place to improve compliance with microbiological and chemical water quality requirements as prescribed by SANS 241.
A system that is Blue Drop Certified must have systems in place to identify risks and mitigate them before disease outbreaks can occur. However, systems that are categorised as critical systems, are put under regulatory surveillance and corrective action plans must be developed by Water Service Authorities (municipalities) to turn around the situation. The DWS monitors these corrective action plans for their implementation.
The Department of Water and Sanitation developed a web-based regulatory tool called Integrated Regulatory Information System (IRIS) where municipalities upload their drinking water quality results for monitoring by the department. This system serves as an early warning system, whenever microbiological water quality failures are detected, the IRIS sends automated emails bi-weekly to the municipalities and DWS. The DWS provincial offices monitor and ensure rectification plans are implemented. Information loaded on IRIS is available not only to the Department but to the public at large to ensure that there is level of accountability to the consumer. By making this information available to the public, the results or lack thereof can be accessed by the public and consequently a municipality will have to account why requirements for drinking water are not met or no samples are taken regularly.
The Constitution assigns the responsibility of ensuring access to water and sanitation services to municipalities. The role of the national and provincial spheres of government is to support, monitor and regulate local government. As the regulator of the water sector, the DWS is required to set regulatory rules, norms and standards for municipal water and sanitation services in terms of the National Water Act and the Water Services Act. This responsibility includes monitoring compliance to the norms and standards and taking appropriate measures to correct and address non-compliance by municipalities which have the responsibility to provide clean water to communities.
In terms of its mandate the DWS is in the process of effecting legislative reforms to strengthen its regulatory capacity:
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