Water and Sanitation Dept fails to transfer 51.5% of funds needed for delivery

16 March 2015

The National Treasury's Third Quarter Expenditure Report for the 2014/15 financial year reveals that the Department of Water and Sanitation is the worst performing of all national government departments in terms of spending its share of the National Budget.

According to the report, the department has spent only 48.5% of its allocated expenditure for transfers and subsidies, a 10% decline on last year's expenditure for the same period. 

These funds ought to be transferred to provincial and local authorities to be used for critical water infrastructure rollout, yet incompetence and maladministration has resulted in local and provincial departments being hamstrung in this regard.

I have today written to the Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Appropriations, Paul Mashatile, requesting that he summon the Minister of Water and Sanitation, Nomvula Mokonyane, to explain why she has failed to adequately use her budget to advance the right of access to water for more South Africans.

The fact that, after 21 years, there is still a huge backlog in the provision of water and sanitation to the country's poorest areas, should surely be reason enough to prioritise this most important and basic service. 

According to the Key Results from the 2011 StatsSA Census, just 46.3% of households in South Africa have access to piped water. In the Eastern Cape, 31.1% of households do not have access to water of an RDP-acceptable level, while the same is true for 27.2% of households in Limpopo.

The ANC must be held to account for their failure to provide this essential service adequately and expeditiously to those who need it most.

Tomorrow, National Treasury is set to brief the Standing Committee on Appropriations on the Third Quarter Expenditure Report. I will see to it that my request is properly considered by the Committee Chair. 

Statement issued by Alan McLoughlin MP, DA Deputy Spokesperson on Appropriations, March 16 2015

Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter