DA calls for inter-ministerial task team to address national water crisis

01 September 2014

Note to Editors: The following remarks were delivered by DA Shadow Minister of Health Dr Wilmot James MP, DA Shadow Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Kevin Mileham MP and DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation, Leon Basson MP, at a press conference in Parliament today.

In the last four months we have been travelling across four provinces - Limpopo, North West, Mpumalanga and the Eastern Cape - to investigate the water quality and water supply in municipalities. 

We initiated this investigation after news first broke of the outbreak of diarrhoea in Brits in North West. Since that announcement, 500 people have been treated for diarrhoea in Brits. Eleven children were hospitalised and three toddlers died of diarrhoea in the area. 

This followed violent water protests in Mothutlung in February this year, where 4 people died in violent clashes with police over the municipality's inability to deliver water to the township.

It is clear from these reports and others that there are serious problems with water provision in some parts of our country. 

We initiated this investigation to determine exactly how bad things were, and what should be done. A copy of the results and images compiled from our visits can be found here.  

We do not wish to create unnecessary hysteria. In most places we visited, the water supply is reliable and the quality is fit for human consumption. But this does not mean we should ignore the growing number of towns where water supply is erratic or where water has become contaminated with bacteria. 

Our investigation found that:

The water in Brits in North West has an E. Coli content 320 times more than is fit for waste water treatment.

 The water in Rietfontein in North West has an E. Coli content 1000 times more than is fit for waste water treatment. 

The water in Mokopane in Limpopo has an E. Coli content 40 times more than is fit for human consumption. 

In Thabazimbi in Limpopo, there is a burst sewage pipe that has been spilling raw sewage into a water main for the past two years. We have not yet commissioned a study on this case, but the water is almost certain to be contaminated with E. Coli. 

In Makana in the Eastern Cape, there has been a complete collapse of the water supply infrastructure, with the town experiencing regular water outages.

At Nelson Mandela Bay in the Eastern Cape, four hospitals' water tested positive for E. Coli and three different sites across the metro tested positive for E. Coli in the water.

At Chief Albert Luthuli Municipality in Mpumalanga, two years ago, yet another case of mines not managing their environmental impact and polluting water sources. 

We are extremely concerned by our findings. We are in possession of a report by the Department which confirms this crisis. 

We are convinced that if our own small-scale investigation was able to produce so many shocking findings, then a more systematic investigation by the appropriate state entity will find massive problems across the country.  

In most cases these problems are caused by a collapse in the local water treatment infrastructure, or the local sewage infrastructure. It is clear that is not a single departmental failure that is at the heart of the problem. 

Getting to the bottom of this will require interdepartmental cooperation. We therefore call for the establishment of an inter-ministerial task team consisting of the ministries for Water and Sanitation, Health, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, together with water and sanitation experts, health experts, engineers and specialists in the field of water purification to investigate the extent of water contamination and to make recommendations to the Minister of Water and Sanitation as to how to address these challenges.

We must do everything we can to ensure every South African has easy access to clean, running water that is reliable and safe. We will engage with the relevant Ministers to ensure that further action is taken by the state to clean up our water supply. 

Statement issued by Dr Wilmot James MP, DA Shadow Minister of Health, September 1 2014

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