The department of water and sanitation has obliged us with a report detailing that 51% of water has poor to bad microbiological quality.
When you think about South Africa, I’m sure, like all of us, you think what the country needs is another state-owned entity.
And in his infinite glorious wisdom, our captain responded to the country’s cries: we’re getting a National Water Resources Infrastructure SOE.
To be fair, this does come from parliament and has been coming for a few years, but let’s check the state of affairs that this aims to address.
The department of water and sanitation
The department of water and sanitation has obliged us with a report detailing that 51% of water has poor to bad microbiological quality.
Non-revenue water losses are 47.4%. Over 40% of water is lost due to leaks. Over 65% of treatment plants are ineffective.
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We also don’t need to worry about the 24 water service authorities which did not present audit reports for 2023.
It’s not a brilliant picture, and I guess we should be grateful that there’s even some kind of intervention. But is this the intervention we need?
Water needs to be clean
Have we not been disappointed by the performance of state-owned entities (SOEs) before? Who appoints the department officials?
Who appoints the SOE officials? Maybe there’s some checks and balances here and there. But have they had a track record of working?
One needs to do a little bit of legal gymnastics to infer a right to electricity but when it comes to water, it’s right there in the Bill of Rights; 27(1)(b): everybody has a right to access to sufficient food and water.
Granted, it doesn’t say that the water needs to be clean so we can enjoy a sigh of relief about that 51% poor to bad quality stuff.
Intervention
And that further demand of the “state must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation … these rights”? We can’t say they’re not doing anything.
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After all, they went to all that legislative effort to set up a whole company. Right? A question though: if the results don’t improve, shouldn’t the company be shut down? For all the talk of this intervention and increased accountability, there doesn’t appear to be much accountability.
How is it that the system got so broken? How is it that the president decries a water emergency with no mea culpa?
Who is in charge?
Who’s been in charge of water for the last couple of years? Lesotho’s answer to King Arthur’s lady of the lake?
When the emperor has no clothes, putting on a jacket doesn’t really help because we’ve already seen them naked. It’s now time to go to the gym; stomach in, chest out.
Actually getting the work done is what’s needed, not setting up another entity to not do the work. Perhaps this SOE will actually function. Hopefully, it will change the perception of SOEs for the better by being effective and making the our water system more functional.
One thing we must appreciate is that water has become more available to so many more people. It doesn’t mean that we have to accept poor water.
It doesn’t mean that we should accept that buying 5l bottles should be a norm. When things were working, letting them break down is no way forward. But nobody will be surprised when E. coli comes knocking.
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