The department of water & sanitation says it is moving with speed to amend water services laws to stem the rapid deterioration in water quality.
The changes will include setting up norms and standards for water tankers delivering water in many parts of the country.
The Water Services Act, which gives the water and sanitation department a regulatory role in governing municipal water services, will also undergo legislative amendments to empower the department to take firm steps, including laying charges against noncomplying municipalities.
The department, in its regulatory role, relies on the National Water Act and Water Services Act, which have proven inadequate in dealing with the deteriorating water quality across the country.
Sean Phillips, the department's director-general, said the National Water Act, which focuses on protection of national water resources, a function involving largely raw and bulk water, has more bite than the Water Services Act, which deals with treated water delivered to communities by municipalities.
“We want to amend the Water Services Act to strengthen our role as the regulator with regards to municipal water services and [for it to] be spelt out as it is in the National Water Act to empower us, the regulator,” Phillips said.
The department is empowered through the National Water Act to act — including laying charges — against accounting officers for the pollution of water sources such as the Rooiwal wastewater treatment works in Tshwane, which pollutes the Apies River and the Leeukraal Dam, a source of water for Hammanskraal.
The department this week released three regulatory watch reviews, namely the Blue Drop, Green Drop and No Drop water quality monitoring reports, which found 334 wastewater systems in a critical condition in 90 municipalities across the country.
The reports also indicated there has been a decline in drinking water quality and an increase in non-revenue water since the last Drop reports were issued.
This comes as a cholera outbreak centred in Hammanskraal, whose source is yet to be established, has already claimed more than two dozen lives.
Phillips said the department would also be revising and amending the norms and standards contained in the Water Services Act.
“We would like to strengthen the existing norms and standards [in the Water Services Act] to broaden them and include some details in them.”
He said for this to happen, the legislation doesn't need to be amended and might take about 90 days to complete.
Anet Muir, the department's chief director for regulation, told TimesLIVE Premium they had finalised the revised norms and standards to guide how water services are run and managed.
“The first norms and standards we have updated is to say who may operate the water treatment works, depending on the size of it and the population it serves.”
Muir said these norms and standards specify who may operate “or what class of a process controller must be in place at a municipality to be able to manage a water works”.
This was aimed at ensuring people with the necessary skills, experience and qualifications manage a municipal water works plant.
Muir said another change was on a basic standard that has to be met to determine how much water people should be supplied with and the quality required.
“One of the gaps we have seen is for the tankers [for which] we need to strengthen norms and standards in terms of how these tankers have to be managed and the standard of water they need to provide.”
After last year's release of the 2022 Green Drop report, the department had issued noncompliance notices to 90 municipalities demanding they submit corrective action plans to address identified shortcomings, she said.
The department, however, only received corrective action plans for 168 of the 334 wastewater systems with 43 of the 90 municipalities requesting support from the department to develop corrective action plans.
Phillips said criminal charges referred to in the Green Drop Watch Report were part of regulatory actions the department has taken against water services authorities for various infringements of the National Water Act, which included failure to submit and implement corrective action plans.
He said several reforms in the water sector were already in place as part of Operation Vulindlela, launched in October 2020 by President Cyril Ramaphosa as part of the economic reconstruction and recovery plan.
Operation Vulindlela seeks to ensure processes are expedited to help unlock economic opportunities and encourage investment.
As part of the operation, the department reinstated the Blue Drop, Green Drop and No Drop water quality monitoring systems that provided a thorough assessment of the state of water infrastructure at municipal level and enabled intervention where municipalities are failing to meet minimum norms and standards.
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