THE government wants to amend water related policies amid a "disappointing" failure by most municipalities to provide quality drinking water, particularly to the rural poor communities.
The policy reforms, also prompted by budget constraints and the lack of people with essential skills in the water sector, are intended to strengthen existing mechanisms such as the National Water Act and the Water Services Act.
This was revealed in the gazetted draft national water resources strategy and the water infrastructure investment framework yesterday, compiled by the Department of Water Affairs.
The highlights admitted to significant water quality problems in South Africa - partly due to toxins from mining activity and poor financial management.
The document states that this bad quality of water negatively affected not only farming but also the eco-system and the economy.
Government hopes the proposed strategy would be the answer to the country's water problems, which also affected equitable growth and development.
"The outcome of the sector relative to sector goals have been disappointing. Uncertainty and a lack of clarity with respect to institutional roles and responsibilities have contributed to poor performance," it says, before pinning its hopes to the strategy, which "must ensure that water serves as an enabler for economic and social development and not a stumbling block".
Other thorny factors highlighted were that though progress has been made in increasing access to water and sanitation, this progress has slowed in recent years and the number of people without adequate services was still too high.
Secondly, progress in allocating water for productive purposes to promote transformation has been very slow and water use patterns are still "skewed and unequal".
Thirdly, water was not managed in a sustainable manner - service delivery has fallen short of expectations. Even the proposed institutional reforms such as the management of catchment management agencies and an entity to manage national water infrastructure have not taken place.
With the latest strategy, the department was hoping to keep track of processes to avoid an exodus of non-implementation which in turn lead to non-delivery of water.
The new strategy was hoping to see investments, which needed to be doubled for the required outcomes to be achieved.
A recent study by the department of Water Affairs showed that about R670-billion was needed by the entire water sector in the next 10 years.
The department acknowledged there that the full costs of developing, managing and providing water must be covered by existing source of funding - namely taxes, tariffs and funding from agencies and international donors - but that it was working on how to best use these options to cover the costs. - nhlabathih@sowetan.co.za
Plan for water problems
THE government wants to amend water related policies amid a "disappointing" failure by most municipalities to provide quality drinking water, particularly to the rural poor communities.
The policy reforms, also prompted by budget constraints and the lack of people with essential skills in the water sector, are intended to strengthen existing mechanisms such as the National Water Act and the Water Services Act.
This was revealed in the gazetted draft national water resources strategy and the water infrastructure investment framework yesterday, compiled by the Department of Water Affairs.
The highlights admitted to significant water quality problems in South Africa - partly due to toxins from mining activity and poor financial management.
The document states that this bad quality of water negatively affected not only farming but also the eco-system and the economy.
Government hopes the proposed strategy would be the answer to the country's water problems, which also affected equitable growth and development.
"The outcome of the sector relative to sector goals have been disappointing. Uncertainty and a lack of clarity with respect to institutional roles and responsibilities have contributed to poor performance," it says, before pinning its hopes to the strategy, which "must ensure that water serves as an enabler for economic and social development and not a stumbling block".
Other thorny factors highlighted were that though progress has been made in increasing access to water and sanitation, this progress has slowed in recent years and the number of people without adequate services was still too high.
Secondly, progress in allocating water for productive purposes to promote transformation has been very slow and water use patterns are still "skewed and unequal".
Thirdly, water was not managed in a sustainable manner - service delivery has fallen short of expectations. Even the proposed institutional reforms such as the management of catchment management agencies and an entity to manage national water infrastructure have not taken place.
With the latest strategy, the department was hoping to keep track of processes to avoid an exodus of non-implementation which in turn lead to non-delivery of water.
The new strategy was hoping to see investments, which needed to be doubled for the required outcomes to be achieved.
A recent study by the department of Water Affairs showed that about R670-billion was needed by the entire water sector in the next 10 years.
The department acknowledged there that the full costs of developing, managing and providing water must be covered by existing source of funding - namely taxes, tariffs and funding from agencies and international donors - but that it was working on how to best use these options to cover the costs. - nhlabathih@sowetan.co.za
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