LETTER FROM THE DM168 EDITOR
South Africa’s political own goal water crisis is nothing short of criminal
This is nothing but political. We got to this dire state of affairs because politicians and their accomplices at various water boards in charge of water infrastructure nationally and in local municipalities chose not to spend on planned maintenance and the repair of infrastructure.
Dear DM168 reader,
I spent the Easter weekend with family and friends at the tranquil Zwakala River Retreat in Haenertsburg in Limpopo.
Zwakala is nestled high up on the forested slopes of the Magoebaskloof mountains, and we were drenched with relentless downpours of rain, and slipped and slid on muddy mountain roads.
While the rain kept us running for cover when we would have preferred to be hanging around the campfire and swimming in the Broederstroom River, the weekend away made us acutely aware of how much we take for granted the value of water.
We can survive close to a month without food, but after just three days without water, we are at death’s door.
In this week’s DM168 lead story, Our Burning Planet writer Tony Carnie writes about the terrifying fact that despite South Africa being a water-scarce country, up to 40% of piped water is lost in cities, towns and villages as a result of leaks. This is criminal on so many levels.
I was gobsmacked this weekend to hear from fellow Zwakala campers from Polokwane about how businesses and families have to fork out between R10,000 and R20,000 a month for water from tanks, as leaking pipes and poor water infrastructure maintenance have led to a critical water shortage in the biggest city in Limpopo.
The water shortage is so bad that residents can’t flush toilets up to three days at a time. This led to frustrated residents of Polokwane, Seshego and surrounding areas shutting down the city on Thursday, 4 April.
Residents interviewed by TimesLIVE reporter Phathu Luvhengo spoke about the insidious nature of the problem. They spoke of water tankers deployed in areas where there was water infrastructure, but the repairs were delayed because, if they fixed the infrastructure, certain businesspeople would no longer benefit. One resident tellingly said: “It seems the water crisis is a man-made [problem] so that they can appoint a contractor and say we are fixing the problem.”
The mayor of Polokwane accused the shutdown of being politicking before the elections. Bloody hell, Mr Mayor, when there is an abundance of water but not a drop to drink, water IS political.
It’s political in the economic hub of Johannesburg, where leaks, rolling power blackouts and some fool closing a valve deprived residents of water for weeks.
It’s political in Tshwane, where more than 30 people died of a cholera outbreak in Hammanskraal because of what water management expert and Unisa professor Anja du Plessis attributes to the legacy of sewage pollution across the country. This is because wastewater treatment works are in poor, or critical, condition as a result of underinvestment and mismanagement.
It’s political all over our country. And it’s not just the residents of Polokwane, Soweto and Blairgowrie or Hammanskraal who are affected, but every one of us.
The government’s own national Blue Drop audit report, released late last year, found that 46% of all water supply systems pose health risks because of bacteria, viruses and pathogens in the drinking water supply, and that nearly two-thirds (64%) of all wastewater treatment works are close to failure.
On top of this, 57% of the country’s municipalities do not notify residents when they discover that the water has been contaminated.
This is nothing but political. We got to this dire state of affairs because politicians and their accomplices at various water boards in charge of water infrastructure nationally and in local municipalities chose not to spend on planned maintenance and the repair of infrastructure.
We can only guess that maintenance money went to vanity photo-op projects of myopic short-term-thinking politicians with no vision or leadership skills, or to some or other tender with kickbacks or cadre deployment based on the insane belief that skilled water engineers and water treatment experts could be replaced by unskilled, unqualified comrades, friends and family.
And if you think I am being unfair, read the Blue Drop report. It showed that:
- Water supply systems across the country need an additional 400 qualified people – 203 technical staff and 197 scientists.
- At least 67% of water treatment works staff had no training at all over the audited period.
- Water supply system managers do not monitor the status of their water.
Current Water and Sanitation Minister Senzo Mchunu and DG of Water Sean Phillips have been hard at work identifying the rot of corruption in the water department, coming up with policies and calling for tighter controls so that “water services institutions are compelled to measure, control or fix leaks on private properties, as government cannot continue to fund new infrastructure projects to supplement leakage”.
But I don’t think this is enough. We need what the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse’s executive manager of WaterCAN, Ferrial Adam, suggested: “A war room approach” to all our water challenges in every city, town, village and district in our country.
We should only give our votes to political parties who commit to enforcing budget spend on water infrastructure maintenance and repairs to stop leaks, and to professionalising every sphere of water service provision with highly skilled, qualified staff who know exactly how precious every drop of water is.
Only NGOs like Gift of the Givers should be used to supply water trucks so we can be assured that no business connection of some small-town or big-city politician or official is making a quick fortune out of maintenance failures of the past. Every life depends on this.
Do yourself and our country a favour. Ask every politician who comes knocking on your door or hustles you for a vote what their solution is to the water problem.
Don’t forget to write to me at [email protected] and I will publish your letters – or pictures, if you are more of a visual communicator – in the newspaper.
Yours in defence of truth,
Heather
This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R29.
Want clean water? Want power? Want law and order? Want education for your children? Want food? Want a job? Want a home?
There’s no magic bullet.
But there is the DA.
Vote for better for yourself and all your loved ones. Vote DA.
(And no, I don’t have any affiliation with the DA, it’s just so obvious I could cry)
Agree 100 percent, we have to give them the opportunity to prove that they can make a difference
Yes indeed. And the best is that it is not even about taking a chance as they have already proven it in the Cape. Are they perfect? No. Are they better? Hell yes.
Let’s elevate our vision quickly with just this single fact:
Cape Town enjoys 1 level less load shedding than everywhere else in the country.
Think about how much it helps the economy in Cape Town. About how many jobs it creates for all.
Now imagine if we put the DA in power nationally and they could achieve just that to start with.
And there is so much more they can bring to the table…
The report referred to emphasizes something I have been saying for 20 or so years – without competent professional engineers managing all our infrastructure it will eventually collapse. Now the chickens are coming home to roost. Unfortunately, just like the previous supporters of the NP, the uninformed but emotional voters will still elect an ANC government.
I was never a supporter of or voted for the old NP but at least they had the ability to keep things like the railways, roads, water and electricty going. The difference, I think, between then and now is that most government departments and muncipalities had their own works departments that were staffed by skilled people who had been there for years and then passed on the knowledge to younger people coming through. Now we have a bunch of outside contractors who do not have the institutional knowledge of the systems they are working on but who simply know that the more the sytems break the more money they can make! The problem also is that these contractors are costing far more than would have been paid to skilled artisans employed by the various govenment departments.
A vote for the anc scum is a vote for the destruction of South Africa.
Excellent article of factual outrage…. Thank you.
Heather, remember when Capt Town was facing Day Zero… At that point every political party was blaming the DA… The city focused amongst others in fixing leaks as logic dictates that less leaks means more water. Work is still ongoing, but our system works and is getting better.
Now that the chickens are back to roost in other towns and cities, we are told “it’s politicking…” Funny that, but not surprising.
You are also right that NOW is the time to use your vote and see which party has managed to do better than the rest where it really matters, in their delivery and ability to keep finances relatively clean. Not who will give a food hamper and a t-shirt every 4 years.
What we allow, we teach. For too long we have allowed this BS to become acceptable. Time to teach some hard life lessons!!!
Our water crisis – like every other crisis we face in our country – is symptomatic of the same thing. We could argue forever what the ‘actual thing’ is – the ANC, Leadership (or lack thereof), the entire system – and the answer is probably ‘all of the above’.
What I truly believe is that if we gonna fix things and create better futures for those to come – we need to find a better way. I don’t know what that way is, but what I do know is that ‘the political’ is not our best answer.
When you consider ‘where we are’ as a country – that we have people in our country literally starving to death – and we then consider the quality and skill of the people we place in charge to fix those things – politicians are not our best (not even a half decent) answer to the scale of the problems that face us.
When I listen to our Ministers and ideas like Floyd Shivambu being our Minister of Finance – you begin to understand that our entire political landscape is a self serving ecosystem where their own interests take centre stage and that the only value they attach to us is our votes.
What our country needs is good people – we need smart, dedicated, honest and hard working people – and we need to find a way to make sure it is those people to whom we give power and agency. We need to change our mindset. We need to stop saying ‘ we give the ANC a chance and they failed’ to one where we say ‘we give the politicians a chance and you all failed’
The DA provides precisely what you are asking for.
And yet we keep dancing the same “we’re all lost, there’s no hope, all politicians are bad, which party do I choose, apartheid is to blame, I don’t trust anyone who is not black/coloured/white/indian” dance like 59.89 million brainless chickens.
There is only one path South Africa. That path is to be truly multiracial and invested in all our people, and while there may be some policies that don’t entirely suit each of us, we need to recognize that compromise is necessary – for all of us.
The past is finished. You just need the courage to vote for our collective future.
The good news is that it’s really not difficult. Vote DA.
Thanks for an excellent article Heather – words (which would be acceptable for publication) fail me when I think about this water, and all the other crises in our country, delivered by the utterly useless and totally corrupt ANC government. Please let’s save ourselves from them soon.
As a national ANC incompetence, this issue – that South Africa’s political own goal water crisis is nothing short of criminal – makes the ANC criminals.
All these greedy and immoral ANC deployees should be charged for amongst others, dereliction of duty. We need accountability so as to ensure others in future are discouraged to do as they please in the process putting the country in a crisis.
All over the country, these greedy deployees deliberately ignored planned maintenance just so they can embezzle the money for immoral, greedy and selfish gains at the expense of the country. Treasonous!!!
Yes, we all can see anc and politician are damaging our country. But DA is also politician right? Reason why DA will never run SA is because of racism they are….cape town we see places where is white dominate service diluvery is good but poor area they don’t care. Just when you get off a flight, is nyanga and Khayalisha and langa….look what happened when springbok were doing the tor , they chose nice Clea city why? Go to area so that the world can see disgusting our people live in….why shame by something you see once while others the rest of their life is like that? Rassie Rasmus when he pick Kolis as springbok captain he was called names that shows how divided SA is. Black community will never vote anc because they are good in law and rules only to black people not to whites that is the reason this country wouldn’t be fixed.
Guy like Rassie are needed. He is successful in springbok simply because he is motivated by our history and embrace that history to every player he choose. The team is united. DA if leaders can learn from Rassie, their project of musi Maimane was coming right just those who are jn control were impatient and showed black voters how they are being tricked. Am sorry DA will never rule SA. The system need to be scraped and use a system not politics to run the country. Look USA , system run the country only individual is elected so that the blame goes to him or her not political party. In cape town we see service delivery to white dominated area is great but to poor black dominated area worse, what different will it be if DA fail to run province yet they promise to correct and run a country? Impossible. Yes, is guy like Rassie who are not afraid to stir or rufle feather was a leader of DA perhaps. Racism on white south African is so dangerous , white European aren’t like the one in SA to be honest.
I’m afraid that SA is now at the crossroads where victory for the ANC is no longer 100% guaranteed same as during the past. They will now cling to whatever remaining power they still have come what may. For the forthcoming election, probably some alliance with the EFF and thereafter, as with most other 3rd world countries, intimidation, election fraud etc. The final frontier before anarchy and all that is evil comes into affect. All, except the corrupt and wealthy will ultimately survive, and the rest of us normal people, suffering, pain, hunger and reflecting back on the days when things were much better! BUT again, we first have to clear the next cycle before logic will kick in and a very slim chance that things in the longer term might thereafter again become better for all. Another 20 years perhaps to wait?
It is telling that the author blames politics/politicians. Not the ANC. That is the problem with DM and even more so news24. It is the ANC that has brought us to this point. The solution is obvious, vote DA, yet no single national media house that I am aware of endorses the DA or even advocates for voters NOT to vote ANC. If you keep doing the same thing over and over again dont expect a different outcome.
When will the arrests start?