Following the recent Water Summit held in Midrand, CBN Editor Robin Hayes discusses some positive outcomes with Benoit Le Roy, founder and CEO of the South African Water Chamber NPC.
“THE appointment of Senzo Mchunu as the new Minister of Water and Sanitation and the permanent appointment of Dr Shaun Phillips as Director General, is seen by many as Government’s first real step to tackle the long running crisis in water and sanitation” said Le Roy “It is encouraging that the Minister’s willingness to engage with a wide spectrum of water and wastewater experts, industry leaders, non-profit organizations, environmentalists, the government in all spheres and water boards to finally understand the problems we face, will hopefully lead to positive action. The Minister’s directive to immediately re-establish the Green Drop monitoring programme is seen as a positive first step” he said.
The plethora of reports of contaminated drinking water and the discharge of raw sewage into rivers and water courses is virtually a daily occurrence with academics and health professionals warning of the potential of outbreaks of cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery, hepatitis A, typhoid and polio – some of which have already occurred in both urban and rural areas of the country.
The crisis in sanitation in South Africa is not a new phenomenon.
It has been worsening for well over a decade judging by the number of reports, plans and policy documents initiated by amongst others:
- The CSIR – State of Water & Sanitation in SA, – 2006
- SA Medical Journal who said in 2009 that ”85% of sewage infrastructure is dilapidated”
- SAICE through its State of the Infrastructure reports – Infrastructure Report Card, 2010 & 2017
- DWS (Dept of Water & Sanitation), – 2016 – National Sanitation Policy Draft
- AfriForum – Blue & Green Drop Report – 2019
- The Helen Suzman Foundation – 2019 The State of Sanitation and Wastewater Treatment
- Human Rights Commission Report – 2021 and of course the
- Annual Auditor General reports.
All these reports and policy documents, drafted by eminent academics, economists, financial and engineering professionals say the same thing – highlighting the problems of capacity, mismanagement, incompetence and corruption and putting forward remedies, yet little or nothing has been done except, more reports and planning documents.
“We are now confident with a tough, no nonsense Minister and a professional manager in the shape of Dr Sean Phillips in charge, (whose acting appointment was recently confirmed as permanent by Cabinet,) that we have reached a ‘watershed’ moment. However, it will take time to overhaul a moribund and politically toxic system where skilled professionals have been chased away by highly restrictive policies over the past 20 years. Filling these massive skills ‘holes’ at all levels – within the three tiers of government, water boards, and technical skills at treatment plants, will not be an easy task.
“While the DWS will without doubt be prioritising skills development programmes, to be rolled out at all levels, there now seems more of an appetite, no doubt driven by the crisis and risk to public health, to engage more with private contractors, technology purveyors and the engineering consulting fraternity, to mobilise the skills base we have” continued Le Roy.
“There is no shortage of technology but unfortunately there is no silver bullet and it is clear that the politicians such as Minister Mchunu are now facing the reality and are prepared to relinquish levels of control to the private sector that can provide strategy, the finance, management and technical expertise to implement business principles to solve the problems.
“The DWS report / policy draft in 2016 estimated that to fix South Africa’s sanitation problems would cost R293-billion. No doubt a revised cost estimate is being worked on as we speak and where the money will come from” concluded Le Roy. The Water Sanitation Master Plan published in 2018 states that the quantum is R900 billion, the SA Water Chamber believes that in 2022 it is in excess of one trillion Rands.
It is a damning indictment of Government policy that no errant municipalities or responsible officials have ever been prosecuted or even held to account for the catastrophic failure of sanitation services. Some have even received promotions or been moved to other portfolios!
The responsible government department – DWS – themselves highlighted in its 2016 National Sanitation Policy Draft,
- 75% of SA’s 852 sewage treatment plants – 639 – do not meet the minimum standards
- Of the 852 treatment plants, over 400 could not be assessed, and of the 203 remainder, only about 50% met the minimum standards
- On the topic of skills shortages, seen as a major contributor to the crisis, it stated that “in 1994 there were 20 engineers / 100 000 of the population”. At the time of writing in 2016, this figure had dropped to 3 / 100 000.
In the absence of Department sponsored Blue and Green Drop assessments, Afriforum conducted its own and in 2019 of the 124 sewage plants tested that year, 65 did not comply with set standards and said “A major concern is that so many plants are releasing sewage into our rivers…”.
