Accountability in South Africa's water crisis: court action suggested
THERE have been mixed views on whether hauling municipalities to court over the ongoing water crisis across the country would work.
Stephen Moore, the DA’s deputy spokesperson on water and sanitation, told Parliament on Tuesday that services like water and sanitation have become luxuries in the country’s economy.
He said local municipalities should not be left to operate without oversight, and that by the government completely taking over the situation would not solve the water crisis.
Moore said a cooperative approach would work.
"Local governments hold executive authority over water and sanitation services, but they cannot be left to operate without oversight. As the minister rightly acknowledged, this water crisis is largely self-inflicted by municipal mismanagement," Moore had said in parliament.
"Minister, you know which municipalities are failing our people. Name them. Hold them accountable. Take the delinquent ones to court if necessary and show South Africans how they have been let down.”
Don Perumal, of the Tongaat Civic Association, said holding municipalities accountable was a “brilliant” idea.
He said water was only delivered to Tongaat’s residents after they “begged” for the most basic human need despite paying for it.
"I think a court holding the municipality to account is brilliant. Ultimately, CoGTA is the body responsible for making sure that municipalities are in-line but they too are failing at their jobs. I think the national government should institute performance based bonuses. So if a municipality is failing to deliver services, they must be given a small budget.
“More than that, there is an evident lack of political will to solve the service delivery challenges in South Africa. We have appointed people into crucial positions but they have absolutely no skills or experience for the job. At a time like this, when this most precious resource is scarce, we need people with the technical know-how to get the job done, not politicians,” he said.
More politics, less action
Vassie Govender, founder of the Voice of Phoenix, said the DA's court threat had no real value for residents.
Govender questioned the party's motives, saying Phoenix had a number of DA councillors who "did nothing" during their water outages.
"It is companies like Venk-Pac and aQuellé that have come to the rescue and delivered water to Phoenix when we needed it the most. It is the Voice of Phoenix that is working daily to help people in need. Where was the DA when we needed them?
"Those bold statements about taking the municipality to court are more just politics. Nothing else. They can solve nothing by going to court. Taking the municipality to court will not help the people who suffer everyday. It will just be a case that costs taxpayers more money," Govender said.
New water schedules
On Monday, Pemmy Majodina, the Minister of Water and Sanitation announced that Johannesburg Water would implement water restrictions in the city from Thursday to allow reservoirs to fill up.
She said this was an attempt by the department to solve its water challenges.
Water will be restricted from 9pm to 4am.
Meanwhile, eThekwini Municipality’s water “curtailment” kicked-off in October as the city set out to reduce the volume of used water in a controlled manner.
"The water curtailment is not water-shedding where there is a schedule for water cuts at certain times. However, the purpose of the water curtailment is to avoid water shedding by bringing down the total volume used in a controlled manner," the municipality had said.
eThekwini’s water restriction project will continue for 12 months.
The POST