Treasury brings in army to tackle Vaal crisis
Publish date: 30 October 2018
Issue Number: 580
Diary: Legalbrief Environmental
Category: Health
Despite encouraging news this week about dam levels rising nationwide, government continues to budget towards improving SA's water quality and supply as it is confronted with other water challenges, writes Legalbrief. Finance Minister Tito Mboweni last week went as far as calling in the army to help with the deteriorating water infrastructure system in the Vaal Triangle. In his Medium Term budget policy statement, Mboweni announced that the Treasury has intervened in the matter by roping in the army. A Cape Argus report quotes Mboweni, who said: ‘We are dealing decisively and urgently with the water crisis in the Vaal River system. Our immediate focus is to mobilise short-term financing by reprioritising funds and increasing capacity.’ Mboweni said he has asked President Cyril Ramaphosa and Water and Sanitation Minister Gugile Nkwinti to assist with engineering and other expertise to resolve the crisis there. ‘We are going to see soldiers deal with the situation decisively,’ Mboweni added. The Minister said Treasury was also intervening in the Giyani Water Project, which he characterised as being plagued by malfeasance. He earlier told the media briefing that the project was initially budgeted at R40m, only to escalate to R48bn due to a ‘cesspool of corruption that must be dealt with’. ‘A key element of the new approach will be stronger focus on project management and contract governance to ensure that projects such as the Giyani Water Project are fit for purpose and maximise value for money in the water sector,’ he said.
At a governance level, the parliamentary portfolio committee has issued a scathing warning to the Department of Water and Sanitation, saying its failure to release water quality reports was illegal, notes a Business Day report. Officials from the department, which since 2014 has failed to release reports measuring the quality of SA’s water resources, appeared before the committee last week. Water users have in the past four years not had any assurances about the quality of water. However, some municipalities have released such reports. The committee said the department’s actions were illegal. The committee hit out at ‘laxity’ in the department, which it said was not fulfilling its obligation to release the report annually. The committee said the negligence contributed directly to water pollution in many rivers, mainly because ‘assessment mechanisms’ were not being implemented. Committee chairperson Mlungisi Johnson said the department promised in January 2017 to deliver the report in October. ‘We are now a year from that promised date yet the report is still not here. What the department is doing is illegal because this laxity undermines the responsibility to ensure the quality of our water resource,’ he said. The committee instructed the department to produce a report detailing the quality of rivers and wastewater treatment infrastructure in 14 days.
Mboweni also committed to funding drought-alleviation projects, which was welcomed by Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Minister Zweli Mkhize. According to a Cape Times report, in his medium term budget policy statement to Parliament last week, Mboweni said R3.2bn had been allocated to deal with the effects of drought and water scarcity. He said R1.6bn would be used to deal with the impact of storms and fires. The funds will strengthen mitigation measures in the face of the current weather outlook pointing to the possible occurrence of the El Nino phenomenon during the 2018/19 summer season through to the winter rainfall season. Mkhize, chair of an inter-ministerial task team on drought and water scarcity, said these allocations would assist affected communities in KZN, the Western Cape and the Eastern Cape, where a state of disaster was declared as the damage caused had exceeded their capacity.
Meanwhile, the good news was that Gauteng dam levels are at a whopping 98%, according to a weekly Department of Water and Sanitation report. A News24 report notes that the latest levels, following heavy rains in the province two weeks ago, make the dams the fullest in the country, the department said. It said the levels were 12% higher than those recorded in the same period in 2017. ‘Vaal Dam, which straddles the Free State, Mpumalanga and the Northern Cape, boasts an average of 85%. It is likely to increase its levels if more rain comes down in the next few weeks,’ the department said. It added that the Free State and the Northern Cape recorded 85.6% and 81.8% respectively at the time of the rains. Meanwhile, the department said dam levels in the Western Cape remained stable at 73.4% – twice the levels recorded in the same period in 2017. The Eastern Cape recorded an average of 72.2%, ‘bringing relief to the drought-stricken Gamtoos Valley in the western part of the province’, the department said. The department added that KZN's dam levels were recorded at 59.7%, a fractional drop from last week's 60%. ‘Even though most parts of the country look stable, the Department of Water and Sanitation would like to caution water users not to get carried away, and to use water sparingly,’ it said.
