Hon Chairperson of the NCOP, HON Minister, hon Deputy Minister, hon members of executive councils, MECs, hon members and fellow South Africans, the American poet, W.H.Auden once said: "Thousands have lived without love, but not one without water".
The preamble of the National Water Act clearly states that the water of South Africa belongs to the people of South Africa. Section 27 of the Constitution of South Africa determines the right to water. These rights are inter-linked with the right to food, health, housing and a clean and healthy environment.
The state is constitutionally obliged to provide clean drinking water for human consumption, provide quality drinking water as well as the provision of basic sanitation services to protect the environment.
The Department of Water and Sanitation proudly branded itself with water is life and sanitation is dignity.
While the mission of the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Cogta, is to ensure that all municipalities comply with their constitutional obligations and perform their basic responsibilities and functions without compromise.
Afrikaans:
Suid-Afrikaners regoor Suid-Afrika kan gegtuig dat water nie meer 'n grondwetlike reg is nie. Dit is genade as jy water in 'n kraan het. Daar is water in die strate en in die velde en geen water in reservoirs en druktorings nie. Die grootste krisis van watervoorsiening is nie net beperkte hulpronne nie; dit is wanbestuur deur plaaslike en distriksmunisipaliteite asook waterrade. Hoewel elkeen van hierdie eniteite 'n mandaat het waarbinne hulle bestuur van water en sanitasie vervat is, word dit in die praktyk gegnoreer.
Moniteringsverslae van waterkwaliteit word nooit aan die publiek openbaar nie. In Noordwes het wyle Minister Edna Molewa, Minister van Waterwese in 2012, die water in die Ngaka Modiri Molema
Distriksmunisipaliteit "ge-redflag" [gemerk] as nie geskik vir menslike gebruik nie. Dit is nog nooit opgehef nie.
English:
Chairperson, why then is the government authorities not kept accountable within their mandates to comply with their constitutional obligations to deliver basic human needs to all South Africans? Why must the Department of Water and Sanitation train people to contain bulk water leakages in municipalities when these municipalities are obliged within their legislated mandates to provide and manage effective water management as well as water loss management.
The lack of the provision of water and sanitation is a public health crisis. It deprives people their right to live in dignity. Every human being suffers if there is no water. The Department of Water and Sanitation' slogan of 'Water of Life' indeed is true because if there is no water, there is no food. Without food there is no life.
It is then when services are not delivered, communities take to the streets with destructive behaviour and the public order police move in with rubber bullets and stunt grenades. This cycle will never stop until people are provided with basic human needs.
Fifty thousand litres of sewage flow into our rivers every second. Our sewerage system is collapsing. A 2017 report indicated that only 60 of the 824 treatment plants released clean water. This poses a great threat to agricultural produce and will soon be affecting the quality of our human lives, if it has not done so already. When diseases like cholera, typhoid fever, hepatitis and many other water borne diseases affects our communities, it will be too late to save our water.
Water specialist, Dr Anthony Turton says: "Once a river slips from a favourable state to an unfavourable state, we don't have the science to get it back." South Africa's limited capacity of water and toxic pollution control of inadequately treated sewer and discharges by mines and factories is now becoming a national disaster.
Where lies the problem? What went wrong? Is it the lack of political will or the appointment of untrained and unskilled employees? Is it financial mismanagement or lack of management skills, discipline and control? No demanding of accountability of officials? No management and maintenance in municipalities causing extensive damage to infrastructure and broken pumps?
I really could go on for a while, but I would much rather spare the national government the further embarrassment of continuously listing the result of their failed oversight. But one thing is clear; failed water augmentation projects all result in dry reservoirs, dry taps and disgruntled unhappy people.
South Africans are subjected to intense water shortages due to reasons created by governance practices. But with oversight and visiting many communities without water it is the most vulnerable that suffers the most. I was there, I saw what is like to be without any means to drink, to cook and to clean. I visited the village of Setlagole in the Ratlou municipality where pumps were removed by the Ngaka Modiri Molema District Municipality more than 10 years ago and not replaced. These South Africans have no other way but to dig pits in the dry Setlagole riverbed, lowering small children down those sandpits to fill up the lowered buckets of seepage water to be pulled to the surface. Water is no life for them.
It is time for national government to understand the severity that the people of South Africa are facing. Water is life. Live up to that slogan, Minister. I thank you. [Applause.]