WATER

THE GOOD, BAD AND UGLY

in South Africa’s water compliance

The recent publishing of the Blue and Green Drop reports is a significant step forward in disclosing the water and sanitation crisis our country finds itself in after nearly a decade of silence about a slow onset disaster we in the water sector all know too well is unfolding.

BY BENOIT LE ROY*

An opinion piece from the SA Water Chamber CEO

That the No Drop report is not published is still a concern as this is about the non-revenue water (NRW), which is reportedly at a staggering national average of 41% with physical losses at around 37%. As a country, we cannot afford to augment our water supplies into a leaking system, so this aspect is as important as the water quality and wastewater qualities focused upon in the Blue and Green Drop programmes.

We need to understand what brought us to this crossroad, without dwelling on the negative, to identify and understand the root causes and then embark on the remedial actions required. This crisis is no different to the Eskom one, this article was written during ongoing load shedding, although it’s far more serious as there are no substitutes for water while energy has a plethora of options from generators to candles, wood/biomass, paraffin lamps, rechargeable appliances, gas and the list goes on without omitting renewables that are out of the reach of most of our population, unnecessarily so.

Firstly, the Blue Drop deals with potable water systems (from the production systems to the bulk delivery pipelines and distribution networks). These are three different and distinctive systems where generally: • Potable water production is produced by water boards directly under national government’s control as the single shareholder and water service authorities (WSA) under district municipality control, which is local government. These systems produce the water in bulk and disinfect before conveying in bulk to their clients that are generally industry, Eskom and municipalities.

Mostly, the water board water quality is of an acceptable standard with district municipalities not so. • Bulk conveyance systems generally boost pressure and

disinfection so that the residual chlorine is compliant at the client’s reservoir. • The client, typically a municipality, then distributes the compliant water to their clients via hundreds to thousands of kilometres of pipelines, pump stations and reservoirs. These municipal systems also require disinfection and pressure boosting to ensure sufficient volume at the delivery points with adequate chlorine residuals.

Only 40% of the potable water delivery systems achieved micro-biological compliance to SANS 241. This indicates that there is inadequate disinfection by municipalities. Irrespective of the production origin, it is the water service provider’s mandate to ensure that there is adequate disinfection in their delivery system to comply to microbiological standards.

Secondly, the Green Drop deals with the wastewater from municipality, state-owned enterprises, industry and Public Works where around 90% are municipal owned and operated. A mere 2% of these wastewater systems achieved Green Drop status, which means that 98% did not comply, which is a complete system failure. The non-municipal systems achieved 83% of their systems scoring above 50%, admittedly a low bar.

In both Blue and Green Drop cases the obvious non-compliance is firmly in the mandate of local government. This is acknowledged by the Ministry of Water and Sanitation without hesitation with the principal reasons for non-compliance given as: • Non-payment for water • Substandard infrastructure upgrades, extensions and renewals • Non-commissioned newly constructed systems • Failed O&M monitoring • Insufficient skills employed

This is a time bomb. So, let’s discuss how we must remediate this collapse of our municipal water systems that are key to support any decent economic activity and to offer some dignity to all our citizens. The root causes are generally: • Dereliction of duty by city councillors • Deployment of cadres and unskilled staff • Inadequate revenue in the water system • Substandard infrastructure

DERELICTION OF DUTY

That we, as a country, have allowed our councillors to not be held accountable is entirely on our shoulders. This has allowed governance collapse as we see daily with potholes, for example. The water infrastructure is mostly underground and so out of the way and not on anybody’s agenda until the taps run dry and sewage overflows into roads and houses.

My suggestion is that municipalities that receive national fiscus grants in the form of their so-called equitable share, should be incentivised to meet, amongst other metrics, 90% compliance to not only receive their full grants, but also at least 50% of their annual salaries. It will very rapidly drive totally different behaviour when one's own budgets and salaries are on the line. I strongly believe that this is the only way forward on this KPI.

SKILLS SHORTAGE

The skills shortage is driven by several factors from cadre deployment to simple ineptitude. Water and wastewater systems are licenced with the Department of Water and Sanitation and must have certain levels of skills to comply to their licence conditions from Class one to Class six operators, for instance, where these skills are simply not employed. The Water Services Act of 1997 amended in 2013 makes this a legal requirement. It is tantamount to sabotage and is like using a flight attendant to fly an airliner. How did we get here? The Auditor-General needs to include this metric on a quarterly basis and non-compliance should lead to criminal prosecution of councillors and responsible officials without fail. This will resolve the situation rapidly.

INADEQUATE REVENUE

Since the introduction of “free water” we have effectively been the designers of our water system demise. With a recent Stats SA report stating that 59% of our households do not pay for water, it is impossible for the remaining 41% to sustain the system. Food is a basic human right but it is not for free. Why should a complex service like water be free? It simply does not make sense. Everyone should pay, albeit proportionate to their levels of affordability.

That municipalities get away with not paying their bulk water provider, some R14-billion in 2021, is simple theft and cannot be allowed to continue and these payments should be made before councillor salary payments to ensure sustainable water service provision to communities and businesses.

Since the introduction of “free water” we have effectively been the designers of our water system demise.

SUBSTANDARD INFRASTRUCTURE

The system used to require an owner’s engineer that would protect the municipality’s investments in infrastructure. Why has this key function either failed or no longer practiced? In the absence of such checks and balances the system becomes open to failure through corruption and incompetence.

If we as a country do not stem the decline of our water system, we will experience a total collapse, which is not an option. We must reinstate infrastructure project governance of the higher order. We did it well before, so it’s possible.

The Good is that we have a national government that has admitted the failures and it is overtly looking to remediate the situation. The Bad is that local government is in total disarray with the most worrying collapse of their water systems and seemingly no urgency in rectifying. The Ugly is the vulnerable water infrastructure that has induced unnecessary hardship on our country’s poorest with the KwaZulu-Natal floods merely reinforcing our state of decay.

I sincerely believe that because we now have all the facts on the table, that we as a country can embark on a road of the recovery of our water security with all the tools available to catalyse the Water and Sanitation Masterplan and the National Infrastructure Plan 2050 that are, in effect, plans to marshall the rebuilding of our economy and country for the benefit of all.

THOUGHT [ECO]NOMY

READ REPORT

greeneconomy/report recycle

THE GREEN DROP NATIONAL REPORT 2022 | THE BLUE DROP PROGRESS

REPORT 2022 | Department of Water and Sanitation [April 2022]

In 2008, the Department of Water and Sanitation (the then Department of Water Affairs) introduced the Blue Drop and Green Drop certification programmes. The Blue Drop certification programme seeks to protect citizens from the hazards associated with contaminated drinking water and the Green Drop programme seeks to protect the environment from the hazards associated with polluted wastewater or sewage.

While there is primary legislation which deals with these aspects, these programmes are intended to augment and compliment the normal legislative and regulatory provisions.

The first Blue Drop and Green Drop reports were released in 2009 and each year thereafter until 2014. There was a break in the department’s undertaking, but it has now resuscitated the programmes. To this end, the Green Drop National Report 2022 was released in April 2022 and the Blue Drop report is due in March 2023. The Blue Drop Progress Report 2022 is available in the interim.