(a)(i) A joint discussion has already taken place between the Department of Water and Sanitation together with COGTA, the Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent (MISA), the office of the Presidency’s M&E unit and National Treasury, and a Project Management Office (PMO) has been established to co-ordinate and integrate all water services activities related to sustainable Water Services delivery in the 27 Priority DMs. The Department of Human Settlements is part of this initiative. The PMO will ensure that there is no duplication with regards to the water and sanitation service delivery and will ensure that funding alignment between different Departments and funding sources takes place.
(a)(ii) No separate actions are being undertaken by the Department. As stated above all water services actions are being coordinated through the PMO.
(a)(iii) A monitoring programme is being established to ensure that, once a pipeline of projects has been determined, they are implemented and run effectively. My Department has identified eleven key intervention activities that will be monitored to ensure the implementation of sustainable water and sanitation service delivery. They are:
A 5-year implementation plan will be developed and implementation thereof will be monitored at community and project level. The plan will be developed through a consultancy process at municipal level with relevant role-players and funding initiatives. The plan will be signed off by Council to ensure that no duplication takes place.
(a)(iv) Requesting Honourable member to note that, there are no two Departments which execute identical actions. Each Department finds its mandate in the Constitution, followed by the legislation administered by the respective Department, therefore the need for such a resolution mechanism has not arisen. My Department's mandate is highlighted in Section 3 of the National Water Act, 1998 (Act No. 36 of 1998):
“Public trusteeship of nation's water resources
3. (1) As the public trustee of the nation's water resources the National Government, acting through the Minister, must ensure that water is protected, used, developed, conserved, managed and controlled in a sustainable and equitable manner, for the benefit of all persons and in accordance with its constitutional mandate. (2) Without limiting subsection (1), the Minister is ultimately responsible to ensure that water is allocated equitably and used beneficially in the public interest, while promoting environmental values. (3) The National Government, acting through the Minister, has the power to regulate the use, flow and control of all water in the Republic.”
(a)(v) Falls away.
(b) Falls away.
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