ANC government “failing” South Africa over water – DA
The water situation in South Africa is multifaceted and everyone is shifting blame. Parliament tried to hold a water debate to sort it all out.
On Wednesday, Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Mmusi Maimane announced that Day Zero would effectively not happen in 2018. Yes, things needed to continue the way they are now but the crisis seemed to have been averted.
While some South Africans raised questions around the DA leader taking control of the situation publically, most were just happy to avoid Day Zero.
Fast forward to Thursday where Parliament held a debate on the water situation in South Africa as a whole.
DA Shadow Minister of Water and Sanitation, Leon Basson, has slammed the ANC government for failing South African water users.
Basson began his parliamentary speech by reminding everyone that the water act declares it National Government’s responsibility to provide bulk water.
“The Water Act is founded on the principle that National Government has overall responsibility for and authority over water resource management, including the equitable allocation and beneficial use of water in the public interest.”
“The Act gives the Minister the power to establish and operate government waterworks that include water storage dams, water transfer schemes in the public interest out of funds allocated by Parliament or from other sources.”
Basson stressed that the drought that has hit the Western Cape has created public awareness of the reality of the effect of climate change. Additionally, there is now a new thinking in terms of recycling water.
The DA man quickly moved on to population growth, pointing out how Cape Town’s population has grown by 79% since 1995. During the same period of time, dam storage has only increased by 15%.
According to Basson, good water management by the City of Cape Town prevented the crisis from happening sooner.
“Chairperson, the Western Cape Government and the City of Cape Town – went above and beyond what was required to prepare for the drought, however, the system failed, at the level of National Government.”
While this parliamentary debate was no different than others in terms of different sides checking the blame around, it was clear that there were failures on both sides.
“While this debate focuses on the Western Cape and the city of Cape Town drought crisis, we must not lose sight of the fact that national government is failing to respond to water disasters all around the country.”
When ending his address, Basson emphasised that the ANC was failing millions of South Africans struggling with water. Not because of drought, “but because of poor infrastructure, corruption and mismanagement.”
