Water and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina during the media briefing where she expressed concerns at the high water consumption rate and leaks in Gauteng and eThekwini. | Itumeleng English/ Independent Newspapers
Durban — The Minister of Water and Sanitation Pemmy Majodina has expressed concerns at the high water consumption rate by eThekwini and Gauteng residents and the failure to fix leaks.
Addressing a media briefing in Johannesburg on Tuesday, Majodina said water supply disruptions in Gauteng and parts of KZN were not caused by drought but by increasing leaks in municipal water distribution systems.
The Minister said the leaks are in turn the result of under-budgeting for infrastructure maintenance by municipalities, partly caused by weak municipal billing and revenue collection for water services. Another problem cited was the population growth in these two provinces as they were the most populous provinces in the country.
“At present, the peak demand for water in Gauteng and eThekwini is occasionally exceeding the supply available from Water Boards. This means that we need to reduce the demand for water. One of the key ways to reduce demand is for municipalities to fix the leaks in their water distribution systems,” said the Minister.
She said water losses were 33% on average across Gauteng municipalities, and approximately 45% in eThekwini and the consumption per person per day was 218 litres, which far exceeded the international average of 173 litres per day. The Minister further said the country also far exceeded the international average for leaks of 15%.
To deal with the problem, the Minister announced that her department will embark on a vigorous awareness campaign urging residents and businesses to use water sparingly. However, she warned that if awareness campaigns were not succeeding, the municipalities must put in place stricter water-use restrictions and enforce them.
In anticipation of the population growth because of the influx to Johannesburg and Durban, the Minister said her department decided to build the Lesotho Highlands Water project and the uMkhomazi Water project, saying these projects were delayed but are now in implementation.
“It will only be possible for Rand Water and the uMngeni-uThukela Water Boards to abstract more water from the Vaal and uMngeni water systems once these major new dam projects are complete,” added the Minister.
Furthermore, she lamented the decline in the delivery of municipal water services despite high levels of support from the national government to municipalities, including more than R60 billion per annum in grants.
She said the money was for water and sanitation infrastructure and free basic water for the indigent, as well as substantial technical, financial and other capacity-building support.
“This indicates that support is necessary but not sufficient to turn around the decline, and structural reform of the municipal water services function is also required.”
She added that the Blue, Green and No Drop reports issued in December last year, indicated that municipal water and wastewater services have generally declined sharply over the last ten years.
The reports also identified the key causes of this decline including weak billing and revenue collection, insufficient prioritisation of budgets for maintenance by municipal councils, and insufficient employment of staff with the required qualifications.
However, she said the national government will not take over municipal water functions.
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