speech by Mrs Lindiwe Hendricks, Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry,
Bronkhorstspruit
3 November 2006
Chairperson and Programme Director
Executive Mayors
Members of the Executive Council
Mayors and Councillors
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
It is my pleasure and privilege to be with all of you here to see the
different spheres of government working together towards improving the lives of
our people. Let me start by saying, improving the lives of our people in
whatever small way, should be the key driving force behind every programme we
implement as government. Local government then becomes the most important arm
of delivery as stipulated by our Constitution and legislation. The need to
ensure that local government is supported in order to deliver on the ambitious
goals of development as agreed and set by our government is therefore of
critical importance.
I would like to confirm that the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry is
taking this task very seriously. We are committed to supporting municipalities
achieve their delivery goals and ensuring that water and sanitation are
provided to all citizens of our country in a sustainable way. It is also our
responsibility to ensure that such delivery is administered in a responsible
manner to ensure that water resources are managed and protected to support our
environment and future generations.
It is our mandate to help enable municipalities that are Water Services
Authorities to perform their functions properly and also ensure that a
regulatory framework for service delivery within the water sector is provided.
This framework is very important for the maintenance of good quality service to
communities and also to preserve the long term sustainability of both the
infrastructure and our water resources. Our efforts as a department in this
municipal area clearly indicate our willingness and commitment to building a
sustainable government institution.
My department also appreciates the importance of aligning our work with the
Provincial Growth and Development Strategy and the Medium Term Strategic
Objectives of national government and the need for this alignment came out very
clearly in the provincial Water Summits we held in the last financial year. Let
me take the opportunity to share with you how my department, together with
other partners are in the spirit of co-operative government, assisting
municipalities to achieve goals set out in their Integrated Development
Plans.
My department participated in the initiative to solicit funding for drought
relief from National Treasury to increase the capacity and the means to supply
water to various areas of this municipality. This initiative led to an
allocation of about R4 million being approved by National Treasury, and the
Department of Provincial and Local Government co-ordinated the transfer of
funds to the Kungwini Local Municipality. It has been reported to me that the
funding was to be spent on:
* purchasing tankers for supply of water to rural areas and informal
settlements
* installation of elevated stands and payment for service providers (where
applicable), whilst waiting for tankers
* drilling and equipping existing boreholes
* installation of cables and pipes in some informal settlements to improve
access to water for some communities who are without water at different time
intervals.
Through this initiative, we recognise it may take some time for us to
provide services to all communities, however, because we are a caring
government, wherever possible, we will explore all efforts to provide our
communities with some form of service until such time that proper
infrastructure is developed. It might not be apparent to most of us who have
such services at our disposal, but it is through such small yet significant
efforts that our government is illustrating its commitment to ensuring a better
life for all.
The capacity to deliver on targets within municipalities remains one of our
challenges as we strive to address huge backlogs in supply of basic services
and reduction of poverty and unemployment. It is a fact that to tackle these
challenges, we need the right skills. Our President has on many occasions,
raised concern on how the skills shortage in our country impacts negatively on
service delivery.
It is for this reason that my department supports programmes like Project
Consolidate that are meant to respond to the skills shortage at municipal
level. As a department, we have actively sought ways to support the Kungwini
Municipality in this context and have in the previous year, deployed two
engineers to support the municipality on all technical issues in water and
sanitation. This support among other things, assisted in the facilitation of
the approval of a business plan within the Municipal Infrastructure Grant
registration process to ensure that implementation of projects is not
delayed.
I am told that Kungwini has also benefited from the Siyenza Manje initiative
by National Treasury and the Development Bank of Southern Africa, which my
department is also co-funding. This initiative entails the deployment of the
South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE) engineers to assist,
resolve and address technical challenges that the municipality is faced with in
terms of project management and implementation, to ensure that delivery is
speeded up.
Apart from the above initiatives, my department and Gauteng Regional Office
has also supported this municipality by providing resources for the development
of the Water Services Development Plan, to ensure that there is proper planning
of water services and that operation and maintenance of infrastructure is taken
care of. I would like to impress upon you as the municipality there is a great
need for all responsible councillors and officials to meaningfully engage in
the development of this document so that you can fully appreciate the water
service provision challenges and the needs of your communities and then plan
accordingly, thereby aligning the Water Services Development Plan with your
Integrated Development Plans.
The other critical area for the Municipality is the monitoring of water
quality. This is important as we not only seek to provide clean and healthy
water for consumption, but we also have a responsibility to ensure that our
water is of good quality. The 2010 World Cup is around the corner; we must make
sure that we are prepared for this event in all respects. We should be proud
that South Africa is one of the few countries in the world where it is still
very safe to drink water from the tap and as a department we are very keen to
maintain that standard. It is for this reason that we have specifically
deployed an official who will assist with the monitoring of the water quality
in this municipality and hopefully build and transfer capacity to the
municipality to perform this important task in-house.
Having said that I would also like to indicate we are aware of the impact
the poor state of treatment plants have on the water quality. To ensure that
this problem is addressed my department has invested a lot of time and
resources in this Municipality to refurbish oxidation ponds and water treatment
works and also to explore building new treatment works. Such initiatives will
favour expanding services to industries and increase the opportunity for
revenue collection from commercial users and other users who can afford to
pay.
Ladies and gentlemen, meeting the targets which our President announced
requires us not only to work harder, but also to be innovative and creative on
how we deliver services. To yield better results in service delivery, we are
forced to adopt a "business as unusual" approach. We will have to explore how
we can creatively utilise the private sector, non-governmental organisations
(NGOs), public entities like water boards and communities to speed up service
delivery.
As many of you may be aware, one of the challenges we are facing as a
department is to make water available for economic growth and development in
support of the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa
(AsgiSA) objectives. Whilst there are initiatives to develop large scale
infrastructure to support future economic growth by building dams in the
Western Cape and Limpopo, it is my firm belief that we are making a big
difference to our fight against poverty and creating a better life for our
people by making available facilities such as these water tankers we are
handing over today.
I would therefore, encourage municipalities that where possible, such small
and yet beneficial initiatives should be looked into. This approach is also in
line with the Integrated Water Resource Management Principle, which is
advocated as an important approach for fighting poverty in developing
countries.
As I conclude, I wish to reiterate our willingness and commitment to
continue our engagement with the Kungwini Municipality and all other
municipalities all around the country, in order to assist in resolving the
challenges and the bottlenecks that hinder the achievement of our goal of
ensuring that our people have access to an efficient, good and sustainable
water and sanitation service. Support to local government is very close to my
department's heart, as it is through working together as all spheres of
government that we can realise the dreams we have as a country.
We commit ourselves to working even harder and smarter together with other
partners to ensure that the "Age of Hope" becomes a reality to all our
people.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Water and Affairs and Forestry
3 November 2006
Source: Department of Water and Affairs and Forestry (http://www.dwaf.gov.za)
