South Africa Water Crisis

water scarcity in South Africa has a

huge impact on the energy education and

Health crisis water and sanitation

minister senzom kunu is working against

the clock to ensure a water secure

country he was engaging with leading

water experts at a national Mysterio

water sector sustainability Symposium at

Empress Palace on Thursday different

commissions will focus on key areas

before making presentations to the

ministry let's discuss this further with

water and sanitation director General Dr

Shawna Phillips DG thank you very much

for your time this afternoon and I

suppose one of the big things that one

would want to know is at the top of the

agenda for the minister to discuss with

the different commissions is what are

the key Focus areas to ensure that South

Africa remains water secure

good afternoon to you and your viewers

we're going to be focusing firstly on

the sustainability of water resources

which is the bulk National Water that

the national Department provides to the

water boards and to municipalities into

big industrial users

in that regard we need to do two three

things we firstly uh need to build more

infrastructure such as dams so we can

store more water but there are

limitations to that because we're

already using about 75 percent of the

available surface water that can be used

in South Africa but we do need to build

the other 25 of the infrastructure to

capture the rest of the water

and then secondly in perhaps most

importantly is that we need to use water

more sparingly we need to improve our

water conservation and demand Management

in South Africa we use more than the

world average in terms of kiloliters of

water per person per day or liters of

water per person per day and yet we're a

very water scarce country

and particularly Municipal level we need

to deal with the problem with a lot of

the water leaking through leaks and in

the distribution Network and then

thirdly we need to develop other sources

of water more like groundwater in an our

coastal cities increasingly over time

we're going to need to make more use of

seawater desalination perfectly powered

through renewable energy if we do all of

these things then we'll have enough

water as a country for our growing

population and for the growing economy

with the second area of sustainability

that we'll be looking at just the

financial sustainability of the sector

at the moment we're worried about the

financial sustainability of the sector

because of the problem of uh poor

billing and revenue collection at

Municipal level which results in

cascading debts up through the water

value chain so we're also going to be

discussing how we can deal with that

problem and how we can strengthen Credit

Control and billing and revenue

collection across the water value chain

and then the third area that we're going

to be looking at is the sustainability

of water services as you know a reviewer

Water Services have been deteriorating

in South Africa at Municipal level in

general and we need to stop that and

reverse it so we're going to be looking

at how we can move to a situation where

citizens are are reliably provided with

quality water and sanitation services by

the municipalities and in that regard

we're going to be talking about ways in

which we can strengthen our role as the

national Department as the regulator of

the sector in terms of

developing broader a minimum norms and

stylish from municipalities to adhere to

and strengthening our role as the

regulator in terms of enforcing them and

also assisting municipalities to do

better in terms of monitoring their own

water service providers to ensure that

they provide good Services

municipalities are responsible for water

distribution in terms of the

Constitution as water services

authorities and they're supposed to

ensure that the water service providers

in their area which are often themselves

meets minimum standard so and provide a

reliable service that they haven't been

doing that generally and we're going to

be looking at ways to address that and

to assist municipalities to become

better Water Services authorities I mean

two important points to take away from

that response DG the need to better the

infrastructure and to improve their

water infrastructure in the country but

also increased oversight into water

usage but as you were responding to my

question I wondered about the role of

Education South Africa is a relatively

small country compared to other

countries in the world and for us to be

the large consumer of waters you've just

described is quite concerning and so I

just wonder if a component of that is

not because it's because rather of a

lack of Education when it comes to water

scarcity in the country and how water

should be used as was the case in the

Western Cape when they were approaching

a day Zero only a few short years ago

if you're correct reviewer uh it has

been a consistent message of the uh

department and municipalities and water

boards across the country for many years

the people need to use water sparingly

because it's a scarce resource

um in Cape Town they were actually quite

effective in dealing with the uh pending

Day Zero by increasing that education

and awareness campaign and they did

manage to get people to use less water

and similarly in Nelson Mandela Bay

they've also where there's a drought at

the moment they've also been having a

very strong education and awareness

program and it has had some impact in in

terms of reducing water consumption but

there's a message we need to keep

putting across all the time

um they're also quite often the the

people who use the most water and and to

wasted are the wealthier people rather

than the poor people so one of the

things that we're going to look at um

during this sustainability Symposium is

the possibility of of uh becoming more

effective in terms of the way they sit

but the prices and tariffs for water so

that um the wealthier people who do use

a lot of water and sometimes wasted it

have to pay more for the water so that

there's an incentive to use water

efficiently

uh DG are there any concerns around any

kind of malfeasance that may come about

you I mention a lot of projects that

will be coming into place to make sure

that South Africa becomes water secure

we've seen various examples of water

projects in giyani but one example where

things didn't go as planned and

communities remain without water for

extended periods of time are you

confident that as these projects are

rolled out in different parts of the

country that the department will have

sufficient oversight to make sure that

communities are getting the

infrastructure that will provide water

as sufficiently to them

yes we're very confirmed about that and

the possibility of there being

corruption and in all the water sector

Investments that we are increasingly

doing we'll be doing in the future where

as the department we Implement some of

the projects ourselves and we've greatly

strengthened our internal controls over

the last few years so that um our level

of irregular expenditure has reduced to

almost zero uh recently compared to

previous years we've also been working

closely with the water boards and uh

encouraging them and ensuring that they

also improve their internal controls and

to ensure that we have people with

Integrity on the boards who will Who who

will be focused on ensuring that the

money is spent as it's meant to be spent

we also give quite a considerable amount

of money in the form of Grants to

municipalities and where we think that

there's a risk of

um of malviations in those projects by

the municipalities then we monitor them

quite closely uh to the extent of

sometimes getting involved in the

management of their projects and and

putting some of our people as observers

on their bid committees to make sure

that things run as they're supposed to

run and of course while we do have that

water DG it has to be usable water and

drinkable water and you would have seen

that the city of tsuane released a

statement earlier today

urging residents of hammer scrawl and

surrounding areas to avoid a drinking

from the Taps there because of the

diarrheal disease outbreak that has

happened there we just confirmed that

about 10 people have now died from the

diarrheal disease there so what kind of

interventions is at your department

looking at when it comes to the quality

of water and also just slowing down if

not cutting out completely this outbreak

that we see in different parts of

Pretoria and other parts of the country

deeply sorry about the deaths that have

occurred

in in the country in particular in this

one area of the last few days from

cholera in tshwanee there's a particular

problem which is caused by

malfunctioning and inadequate wastewater

treatment works in the Herman's crawl

area

uh the Water that's provided to people

is drawn from water resources which are

being contaminated by wastewater

treatment works under the tshwanee

municipality we over the last few years

we had issued to any municipality with a

series of directives

instructing them to address the problem

to rehabilitate their wastewater

treatment plants and to make sure that

they have sufficient capacity to deal

with the Wastewater load which is coming

into them unfortunately tshwanee has not

yet done that work they do get a grant

from the national government called the

urban settlements development Grant

which they should be using to prioritize

the upgrading of those wastewater

treatment works and when they fail to uh

respond to our directives we then took

the municipality to courts and we're

currently engaging in a process in the

court to try and force them to use their

Urban settlement development Grant to

upgrade and rehabilitate those

wastewater treatment works and we're

hoping that the matter can be settled

out of court with an agreement on an

action plan by the city to address those

wastewater treatment works the water

quality problem in Hammond's kraal is

not going to be addressed until those

wastewater treatment

problems are are addressed which are

polluting the water from which they draw

their drinking water and of course

unfortunately in the meantime DG people

as you just sent out your condolences

are dying from the polluted water what

has the city of tshwane given you as a

reason as to why they've been unable to

repair the wastewater treatment plants

and ensure that the water that is

running through the Taps is actually

actually usable and not deadly

they have indicated that they have many

needs in swanny and they have a shortage

of funds that is our view that they have

this Branch the urban settlements

development Grant and they need to

prioritize this work with that Grant

so you're saying that there is a court

action that is currently underway and

you're hoping for an out of court

settlement

um are you able to give the people of

the city of 20 time frames into when all

of these legalities will be concluded so

that the actual groundwork can begin uh

to restore the cleanliness of the water

that runs through the TAPS in the city

but we are

um we are really concerned about the

problem and we are pushing it as as hard

as we can for the matter to be resolved

and for tuani to be given an order of

the court to use its its Grant to

upgrade those wastewater treatment works

um I mean just lastly DG if you will

uh there's two days to the submission of

the public Tree on the access of Stayton

dams for recreational use what is the

update on those cons on those

consultations that you are able to share

with our viewers

okay um just to clarify we did Issue a

um because they didn't notice asking for

comments on our draft new regulations

for recreation and tourism at dams

uh we issued that on the 24th of March

and gave

citizens 60 days to respond to their

Gazette notice so a couple of days ago

we just issued a notice reminding people

that it's the the the consultation

period is coming to an end on the 24th

of May

um but uh we we think there's a lot of

potential for increasing tourism and

Recreation at our dams we will also be

issuing a request for it or for interest

for the private sector to give us

proposals for investing more in tourism

facilities at our dams and for local

communities to do the same and perhaps

Partnerships between the private sector

and local communities but as we do that

we we need to regulate

um recreational tourism at the dams to

ensure that it doesn't result in

ecological damage and that um it's safe

and that people don't put themselves at

risk by using the dams for recreational

purposes

thank you very much for that detailed

update Dr Sean uh Phillips this

afternoon uh speaking to us about that

Gathering that's going to take place

later on this week between the

department and important stakeholders

related to the water industry and

ensuring that South Africa becomes a

water secure but also very worryingly

the fact that the city of tswane is

going through what it is now 10 people

dying from diarrheal disease uh possibly

cholera because of a contaminated water

residents there in hammanskraal and

surrounding areas being advised not to

drink from the Taps and as you've just

heard the DG there highlighting that

they've been giving twane the directive

to focus the funds that they get on the

restoration of the infrastructure of the

wastewater treatment plant so that this

issue can be dealt with obviously tswana

hasn't done this you heard him say that

they say they don't have enough budget

for other important needs within the T

and so this has led to the court

proceedings that are currently underwear