ActionSA outlines its solution for SA’s water crisis

ActionSA says it plans to address the country’s water crisis head-on as the ANC government appears incapable of dealing with a problem that has become a central issue in the lead-up to the general election on May 29.

Michael Beaumont, the party’s national chair, accused the ANC of having failed to act to protect SA from the water crisis that was “entirely avoidable if it had not been preoccupied with looting our country”. 

He said on Thursday an ActionSA in government would solve the crisis by appointing sufficient engineers and project managers in the department of water & sanitation; investing in technology; reducing demand for water and increasing supply; and identifying leakages in the system.

SA is a water-scarce country and farmers and communities across the country are complaining about little to no access to potable water. Even its economic and financial hub, Gauteng, which contributes nearly 40% to national GDP, hasn’t been spared from outages. 

Besides personal consumption, water is crucial to several industries, including manufacturing, while agriculture accounts for about 60% of all consumption in the country.

“We will launch a nationwide leak identification programme, requiring all municipalities and bulk water suppliers to conduct projects aimed at identifying water leaks. We will consequently allocate sufficient financial and technical resources to rapidly address water leakages in bulk infrastructure,” Beaumont said. 

He said the political party, led by former Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba, would provide incentives for research in technology that improves water supply, “including the affordable desalination of seawater, resilient infrastructure, and water supply monitoring”. 

Phase 2 of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, among other projects, was “seven years overdue and threatens the security of the entire Integrated Vaal River System which feeds Gauteng, Mpumalanga, the Northern Cape and Free State provinces”, Beaumont added. 

“The department of water & sanitation’s capacity to oversee these projects has been at the heart of the delays, with more than 100 senior engineer vacancies within the department,” he added. 

“In 41 days from now every South African will have the greatest opportunity in the past 30 years to remove a government that has produced a water crisis that is on our doorstep. If South Africans want this water crisis solved faster than the 17 years with which our energy crisis has gone unresolved, they need to vote to remove the ANC on May 29 and vote for ActionSA so that decisive and clean government can begin the work to fix our water network.” 

The cabinet announced plans in June last year to spend almost R80bn in a bid to deal with the issue, which opposition parties have dubbed water shedding.

In a recent interview with the Sunday Times, though, deputy president Paul Mashatile called for the situation to be “depoliticised”. 

The Sunday Times had reported that the government intends co-opting farmers and the trade union and civic movement Solidarity to help local governments repair and maintain hundreds of stricken water-treatment plants. 

The national government has warned it will take over provision of water responsibilities from local councils as a last resort if repeated interventions and funds fail to halt the rapid decline in water quality and supply.

“Essentially, the president’s intention is to make sure we don’t get to a crisis as we did with electricity,” Mashatile told the newspaper. 

mkentanel@businesslive.co.za