Question NW205 to the Minister of Water and Sanitation

Reply:

The Water Services Act distinguishes between the Water Service Authority (WSA) and Water Service Provider (WSP) functions at municipal level. Only a municipality can be allocated the power and function for the WSA function in terms of the Municipal Structures Act. The WSA function is the primary Constitutional role of municipalities with regard to water and sanitation services.

The key role of the WSA is to ensure that the WSP provides services which meet minimum norms and standards, and to deliver on the legislative and executive functions such as promulgation of by-laws, approval of integrated plans and budgets and approval and regulation of service delivery mechanisms. Very few municipalities are implementing their WSA function as envisaged in the Act.

The Water Services Act, read together with the Local Government: Municipal Systems Act provides that a WSA can approve any legal entity (municipality, municipal entity, another municipality, CBO, NGO, organ of state, private company, or water board) to function as a WSP in the municipality. However, almost all municipalities are currently both WSA and WSP (they have approved themselves as the sole WSP). The Water Services Act requires municipalities to manage and account for their WSA and WSP roles separately – but very few municipalities are doing this.

There is evidence that water services delivery performance shows an alarming declining trend, as illustrated by the Department’s Blue Drop, Green Drop and No Drop regulatory reports. Further, the recent cholera outbreak highlights the risks associated with allowing the trend to continue unabated. Many municipalities are in a vicious circle of decline with regard to their water and sanitation services. The main elements of this vicious circle are poor and declining services; reducing payment for services; poor governance, poor management and under- investment.

The Department of Water and Sanitation is actively intervening in poorly performing municipalities, and the Minister has been meeting with Mayors and agreeing on action plans to address issues. The DWS assists with its grants where possible and monitors and supports the municipalities with implementation of the action plans. Notwithstanding the above, municipal water and sanitation services continue to generally deteriorate. To break the vicious circle, it is necessary to ensure that water services are provided by professionally managed, capable, efficient and financially viable institutions.

On 18 and 19 January 2024, Minister Mchunu had a two-day Summit with all the water services authorities in the country, to discuss the results of the Drop reports. The drop reports found that, of the 144 water services authorities in the country, 67 had drinking water or wastewater systems in a critically bad state of performance. One of the resolutions of the Summit is that this group of water services authorities should initiate processes in terms of Section 78 of the Municipal Systems Act to review their Water Service Provider arrangements and to consider alternatives for more effective water service provision.

---00O00---