South Africa’s dirty water politics
News reports have been covering the looming watershortage crisis in Cape Town, South Africa’s second-largest city. The focus of the stories, understandably, has been on the likely consequences, scary as they are. What they don’t discuss are the deeper political causes of this shocking situation, in which a major developed city and global tourist destination is about to run out of water.
The immediate cause is a devastating drought, now in its third year in the Western Cape province, of which Cape Town is the capital and economic powerhouse. The dams on which the city relies for its water supply are at dangerously low levels, with no rain forecast for the foreseeable future. But South Africa has faced an escalating water shortage for decades. Two years ago local observers sounded the alarm about Cape Town’s coming crisis. So there has been ample time to develop and implement an action plan. That has not happened. Now it’s the 11th hour: Day Zero — when the dams drop to 13.5-per-cent capacity and the taps are turned off all across the city — is expected by early June. The date was just pushed back from midApril thanks to conservation efforts that reduced daily water use to below 550 million litres, down from more than a billion litres.
If Day Zero arrives, expect serious unrest as people fight for water. Ratings agency Moody’s, warning of a possible credit downgrade, said that, given the city’s marked income inequality, the water crisis posed a possible threat to social order. It’s going to get ugly, fast. How did it get to this? While there is plenty of blame to go around, here are t wo i nterconnec t ed underlying causes.
The Western Cape is the only South African province not controlled by the African National Congress, the national governing party since apartheid’s demise in 1994. The Western Cape is governed by the Democratic Alliance, a liberal opposition party whose base is mainly made up of liberal whites, the so- called “Cape Coloured” ethnic group, and urban, educated blacks disillusioned with the ANC’s epic corruption and mismanagement. This irks the ANC to no end. The national government has been playi ng politics with water, hoping it might lead to the DA’s downfall if the party is seen to have mismanaged the water issue on its watch. However the water- supply infrastructure is a national government obligation, not a provincial one. The ANC government, focused obsessively on its own retention of power, has done almost nothing to plan for critical new water infrastructure for Cape Town.
The other related key factor has been the ANC’s dogged espousal of political ideology over pragmatic governance. Two years ago, when it could still have made a difference, an international conference on South Africa’s water crisis, organized in Johannesburg by South Africa’s Mail & Guardian newspaper, was cancelled due to political pressure. Israel’s then ambassador to South Africa was to have participated, Israel being a global leader in water conservation, recycling and irrigation, offering cutting-edge desalination technology. The South African wing of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement gloated at this cancellation, saying, “the rug has been pulled from the Israeli ambassador, who will not be able to exploit our very serious water crises for his own cheap publicity and whitewashing of his regime.”
That former Israeli ambassador to South Africa, along with its current ambassador and economic attaché, have reportedly all made repeated offers to the South African government to assist with Cape Town’s water crisis, and have been rebuffed. Never mind that Israeli technology could have helped make a difference. The South African govern- ment effectively boycotts Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian cause. Ties between Hamas and the ANC are close: Hamas participated in the ANC’s National Conference this past December. During that conference the ANC decided to downgrade the status of South Africa’s embassy in Israel to a “liaison office.”
Long- term planning for water is absolutely essential. The ANC government has done precious little. It has finally declared the drought a national disaster, meaning that it now takes the lead on dealing with the crisis. Meanwhile, Cape Town city council is rushing to build temporary seawater-desalination plants around the city, but these will likely not be ready in time nor have enough capacity to avoid Day Zero.
Cape Town is barrelling toward a cliff, and as usual the poorest will suffer the worst. The ANC has a lot to answer for. Now under new leadership, it has the opportunity to change course. South Africans can only hope that Cyril Ramaphosa’s accession last week as president represents a new and effective engagement of the governing party in this national crisis.
Lance Berelowitz is a Canadian urban planner, writer on urban issues, and the awardwinning author of Dream City: Vancouver and the Global Imagination. He was born and raised in Cape Town.