President Cyril Ramaphosa did not misspeak in announcing changes to his Cabinet when he said that “water is our country’s most critical natural resource”.

According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), demand for this most fundamental of resources is set to reach 17.7 billion m³ by 2030 — up from 13.4 billion m³ in 2016 — outstripping what the country is able to secure and provide to its citizens. And this is before the effects of climate change substantially accelerate the country’s water scarcity problems.

“We have therefore decided that water and sanitation should be a separate Ministry, which will enable a dedicated focus on ensuring that all South Africans have access to a secure and sustainable supply of this precious resource,” said Ramaphosa.

The news brings back full circle the merry-go-round that the corruption-beleaguered and mismanaged Department of Water and Sanitation has been on since at least the start of the Zuma administration.

Following the election of the former president in 2009, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry was divided, with the forestry portfolio being transferred to the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. The Department of Water and Sanitation was established by the erstwhile president in 2014 with Nomvula “mama action” Mokonyane taking the helm as minister before she was replaced by Gugile Nkwinti in 2018.

According to a report by Corruption Watch, by the time Mokonyane left, “irregular expenditure was well over R4-billion with new cases still being uncovered and DWS effectively bankrupt”.

Following ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ascendance to the main seat at the Union Buildings, the president again merged departments, appointing Lindiwe Sisulu, Pam Tshwete and David Mahlobo as Minister and Deputy Ministers of the Department of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation respectively.

He has now undone that change, separating the department once again, this time under the leadership of Minister Senzo Mchunu and Deputy Minister Dikeledi Magadzi. 

“At the beginning of this administration, we had brought these two portfolios together on the understanding that the provision of water is closely tied to the development of human settlements,” said Ramaphosa. “However, the reality is that water is a far broader issue, impacting not only on human settlements, but also on agriculture, industry, mining and environmental management… Water security is fundamental to the lives and health of our people, to the stability of our society and to the growth and sustainability of our economy.” 

Mchunu has his work cut out for him if he is to clean the rivers of sewage and rightside an entity that is a major determinant of health, dignity and economic prosperity in South Africa. The department carries the baggage of successive scandals of ineptitude and corruption and is a far cry from being representative of the South Africa that in 2002 led the campaign to set a global goal for sanitation provision that is now included in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

A DM168 investigation previously found that “75% of 910 municipality-run wastewater treatment works achieved less than 50% compliance to minimum effluent standards” in 2020 and that “billions of litres of poorly treated or untreated sewage, industrial and pharmaceutical wastewater are spewed into our rivers and oceans”. 

The renewed emphasis on water as a critical resource and this corresponding shift in ministerial leadership presents an opportunity to decisively deal with what the Auditor-General in 2018 called “significant instability at leadership level within the DWS”.

The news is especially significant given the projected impacts of the climate crisis on this critical resource and the scarce and stressed nature that defines the country’s relationship with it. South Africa has 22 strategic water source areas, 223 types of river ecosystems and 792 types of wetland ecosystems, and half of the country’s river flow is provided by 10% of land area, according to the WWF.

The World Bank Group has previously noted that “based on rising population, economic growth projections, and current efficiency levels, demand for water in South Africa is expected to rise by 17.7 billion m³ in 2030 while water supply is projected to amount to 15 billion m³, representing a 17% gap between water supply and demand (or a 2.7-3.8 billion m³ water deficit)”.

And this is notwithstanding the projected impacts of climate change in the country. In an interview with Daily Maverick, leading climatologist and professor with the Wits Global Change Institute, Professor Francois Engelbrecht, said that “multi-year droughts are the number one climate change risk that South Africa faces in a changing climate”.

South Africa’s water source areas (Source: WWF)

See: WWF

One need not look far or hard to find multiple examples of water scarcity and how water-stressed the country already is.

Daily Maverick previously reported that dam levels in the Amathole district in the Eastern Cape have reached their lowest levels, with taps in the drought-stricken region potentially running dry within a few months. 

Added to that, the memories of the Day Zero scare — with nightmarish scenes of dried toilet cisterns and long queues for spring water — still resonate with many Capetonians. That episode in the Mother City’s history was precipitated by a three-year drought that was the worst in recorded history.

The drought which hit southern Africa between 2015 and 2018 was the worst in more than a century of record-keeping. In those years, rainfall varied between 50% and 70% of the long-term average, according to the University of Cape Town’s Climate Systems Analysis Group, with many rainfall figures dropping to the lowest since written records began in the 1880s, Daily Maverick previously reported.

It may seem like a far-removed issue for many South Africans, but the fact remains that a major city of some four million people was within three months of running out of municipal water.

It is in this context then that, in initial reaction, senior water industry leaders and civil society organisations welcomed President Ramaphosa’s decision to separate the Ministry of Human Settlements from the Ministry of Water and Sanitation.

Ruth Beukman, Freshwater and Policy Lead at WWF South Africa, told Daily Maverick that “WWF welcomes this announcement to have a Ministry dedicated to water and sanitation. The president’s acknowledgement of how critical water is to people, the economy, industry and the environment — was most reassuring.”

“Water is everyone’s business and cuts across all sectors. Indeed, to attain National Development goals and in terms of global post-2030 development agenda, we will not be able to attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) if we do not focus on SDG 6 — Clean Water and Sanitation. Water is an enabler for the other SDGs!

“A dedicated ministry is appreciated, and it needs to be well capacitated — capacity that can also be leveraged through effective partnerships. In addition, given water’s cross-cutting and central role in achieving our development ambitions and striving for water security, we simply must prioritise and dedicate investment in strengthening coordination mechanisms and institutions across ministries, departments and the different portfolios, at multiple levels and between levels — national, provincial and local,” said Beukman. 

“This is excellent, excellent news,” said Neil Macleod, a senior fellow of the Water Institute of South Africa. “As the president said in his announcement, water is our country’s most critical resource — and yet it is becoming more scarce, due to rising demand and more frequent droughts.”

Macleod, who is also a consultant to the World Bank on water issues and who served as head of water and sanitation for the Ethekwini (Durban) Municipality for over 20 years, said: “To lump water and sanitation with housing just made no sense. Water provision and conservation needs a dedicated focus on its own.”

Noting that South Africa is ranked as the 30th driest nation in the world, Macleod said he also hoped that the reconfiguration of Water and Sanitation as a single, focused department would also help to reverse the declining state of sewage and wastewater management across the country.

“You just have to look at the state of the Vaal river, the uMngeni River and many others. Almost everywhere you look the quality of water resources is declining because of dysfunctional wastewater management in cities and towns.”

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) has also welcomed the move.

“Splitting these Ministries makes sense, as these are huge departments, neither of which have delivered meaningful output for many years.

“We hope Senzo Mchunu is up to the enormous job at Water and Sanitation, a department which was raided by the State Capture gang, for years ignored the Vaal sewage problem and is still the subject of an expanding SIU investigation,” OUTA said. OBP/DM

Additional reporting by Tony Carnie.