Question NW755 to the Minister of Water and Sanitation

Reply:

The Minister is actively intervening in poorly performing municipalities and action plans have been agreed upon to address water supply shortages and other challenges in struggling municipalities. Interventions are intended to improve the capacity of Water Service Authorities to operate, maintain and manage assets for existing infrastructure include:

• A number of bulk water resource projects aimed at ensuring water security are being implemented by the DWS throughout the country. These include regional, inter-basin and transboundary transfer schemes/ systems entailing large dams, canals, pump stations, tunnels and pipelines.
• Financial support to municipalities by the DWS in terms of the grant framework in terms of which 44 billion is budgeted for over the MTEF. Implementation of grant funded projects will improve the reliability of water supply and sanitation services to all households in South Africa through the development of municipal water and sanitation infrastructure to address backlogs. This also includes refurbishment of existing infrastructure that is no longer functioning optimally.
• The DWS has implemented a country wide programme to ensure effective integrated planning together with Municipalities through the development of Five-Year Water and Sanitation Reliability plans that will also ensure funding stream interaction during the implementation programme.
• The Department is also in the process of developing Provincial Bulk Master Plans that will identify Water Resource shortages in critical areas and the development of pipeline of projects to ensure the availability of resources to all affected areas.

• To ensure the sustainability of water services sector, the Department is introducing a number of water reforms including:

• • Introduction of Operating License for Water Service Provider (WSP). The Department will specify minimum competency and minimum performance levels for WSP linked to gazetted norms and standards for water and sanitation services (including full financial transparency and reporting). Municipalities must fulfil licence conditions if it provides the service itself or must contract with a licensed WSP that also meets the requirements.

• • Strengthening the enforcement by amending Section 63 of Water Services Act to enable enforcement through directives. Currently sections 62 and 63 of the Water Services Act enable the Department to intervene in municipalities where monitoring of municipal water and sanitation services by DWS indicates failure to adhere to national norms and standards, subject to section 139 of the Constitution. The amendments will, as the last resort, enable the Minister to enforce the separation of water services function from the municipal administration where there is persistent failure to meet license conditions, and require the municipality (as Water Services Authority) to contract with a licensed WSP.

• Lastly, the department has established the Water Partnerships Office (WPO) at the Development Bank of South Africa to assist municipalities to contract for public private partnerships (PPPs) and to contract with independent water producers (IWPs). The WPO has developed five standardized national programmes for private sector participation in municipal water and sanitation services, to make it easier, quicker, and cheaper for municipalities to enter into partnerships, without having to ‘reinvent the wheel’ for each partnership.

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