Hon Chairperson, hon Joemat-Pettersson, hon Shabangu, the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs in absentia, I think we are ready as Salga to partner with the Department of Agriculture to ensure that the implementation programme as envisaged by the Minister is being effected. We would also like to call upon the Minister to, as soon as possible, investigate labour practices and the use of labour in the agricultural sector, because, invariably, it makes of our citizens domestic refugees in the use of that labour.
We would also like to highlight to the Minister the fact that there are triple bottomline requirements being implemented currently, and local government is looking at the code of good practice set by the UN, the sustainable use of natural resources within the context of climate change and food security challenges at local level.
Section 27(1)(b) of the Constitution defines water access as a right to every citizen. We could not agree more with the hon Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs in respect of this. Another important right relevant to this debate is indeed the right to an environment that is not harmful and protected for the benefit of the current and future generations, found in section 24 (a) and (b). And local government, in terms of the objects of local government, also has a responsibility to create a safe environment.
I must indicate that in this charging with the above-mentioned rights Salga and its member municipalities have been working closely and have benefited from the support and leadership provided by the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs. As an outcome of this co-operation, the recently released community survey by Statistics South Africa in October 2007 indicated that over 88% of households had access to piped water compared to just less than 85% in 2001.
Over 60% of households had access to flushing toilets compared to just under 52% in 2001. The R500 million set aside to intervene in high risk areas to deal with aging infrastructures, sewage spillages and acid management is welcomed. This is very important to local government as it addresses two political matters: Firstly, when municipalities were established and assigned with the water services function, we inherited old infrastructure - some of which was way overdue for replacement. This required huge investments. In a sense, municipalities inherited a liability rather than an asset, because by taking up the water services authority function, we accepted an alienable responsibility of replacing and refurbishing old infrastructure that was associated with the function. This infrastructure had been servicing or was consumed by a fraction of the population, which was mostly white.
The policy thrust of the new democratic government was to extend services to those not served rather than refurbishing and replacing infrastructure that benefited a minority. The effect of this was to postpone investment in infrastructure, refurbishment and replacement and further load this old infrastructure. In a sense, infrastructure replacement liability was transferred to local government without a policy solution as to how this liability was to be financed.
The absence of such a policy solution is now playing itself out in the public domain through the spectacular collapse of infrastructure in many municipal areas. Formulating this policy solution can no longer be postponed and it will be inappropriate to leave it to local government alone to solve this policy problem.
The second issue - and I'm happy that the Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Land and Environmental Affairs, Madam Qikani, addressed this issue - is that when water services infrastructure predominantly servicing the rural areas with high levels of poverty was transferred to municipalities from the national government, there were agreements that the operation and maintenance would be financed from the national fiscus for a maximum of three years and thereafter the receiving municipalities would take over.
There are two problems that are related to the implementation of these agreements. The first one is that when the infrastructure was transferred, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, Dwaf, transferred only labourers together with it and retained the relatively skilled staff and then subsidised the salaries of labourers and not the technically skilled positions. This has led to a situation where municipalities could not have the required resources to employ the required skills in addition to the difficulty of attracting skills, even in cases where some municipalities are able to finance these technical positions.
The commitment to spend R30 billion in the next five to eight years to build 15 mega water resource infrastructures is important to ensure water security and availability at all times. Increasingly municipalities have been facing bulk and rural water shortages. There was not much that municipalities could do about this as our mandate and related financing does not include the construction of dams. With the attention focusing on big national projects, small medium-sized towns that were dependent on small to medium-sized dams suffer water shortages.
Recent engagements with Dwaf and water boards around bulk water tariffs had indicated that there is a need to discuss the financing of the sector as it is apparent that the country may not be making adequate provision for infrastructure development, maintenance and rehabilitation in the water sector as a whole. There is a need to develop a medium- to long-term water sector funding and pricing model.
In the context of the above, there is an apparent untenable relationship between the role of the department as a regulator of the sector on the one hand and as sector leader on the other hand, a supporting institution to local government and a supplier of bulk, raw and purified water by virtue of being a sole shareholder of water boards and the owner of dams. The whole issue of being the regulator, or the referee and being the player at the same time is the cause of this untenable situation. This must be resolved as matter of priority.
The policy changes raised above suggest a need for a mutually supportive relationship and closer co-operation between the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs and local government. Salga would like to work with the department to find solutions to these policy challenges. Salga is very optimistic that the future in terms of infrastructure creation, especially in these bad economic times, will lead to job creation and we believe that when there is a turnaround, there would be infrastructure that has been created for us to capitalise on growth and development of mutual benefits, both in agriculture and in the water sector. As Salga we support the Budget Vote as submitted. Thank you. [Applause.]