The Value of WaTer By Sinazo Mkoko
SA making progress towards achieving SDG6 on water and sanitation
O
n 22 March, the world will mark World Water Day. The day is aimed at encouraging efforts to accelerate change to solve the water and sanitation crisis across the globe. This year’s global campaign is “Be the change”, and it encourages everyone to take action in their lives to change how they use, consume and manage water.
Delivering his Budget Speech in February, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said climate change poses considerable risks
and constraints to sustainable economic growth in South Africa and recent events have shown that extreme weather events such as floods, heatwaves and drought are occurring more often. It’s a well-known fact that South Africa is a water-scarce country and loadshedding amongst other challenges also adds to the pressure. In the Western Cape, the City of Cape Town has said that loadshedding is having an impact on water supply operations in Cape
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Town, notably in higher-lying areas where water needs to be pumped to get to properties. The City urged residents to play their part in reducing water usage so the City can maintain the supply during prolonged high stages of loadshedding and reduce the collective water use to 850 million litres per day. Acting Mayoral Committee Member for Water and Sanitation, Councillor Siseko Mbandezi, said the reservoirs are not able to fill up “fast enough because of the prolonged period of load-shedding.”
