Maimane warns of impending water crisis

POOR management of the country’s water infrastructure would see unemployment climb, businesses close and shortages that would equal the current electricity crisis, DA leader Mmusi Maimane yesterday warned.

Maimane, who was addressing residents in Illovo, south of Durban, said: “We are fast approaching a water crisis of disastrous proportions in our country, the 30th driest in the world.

“But this crisis is not only a climate problem; it is a problem of governance. The burden of low rainfall is being exacerbated by poor maintenance, ageing infrastructure and an intermittent energy supply.”

He said that the country had a constitution that guaranteed water as a right, but that underspending and mismanagement were ensuring that it was being denied to millions of South Africans.

“Without water for irrigation, sugar farmers are suffering and mills are closing. The result is job losses that we certainly cannot afford,” he said.

Maimane pointed out that government was currently only allocating enough money to fulfil 45 percent of the maintenance requirements to keep water flowing.

“We cannot allow the water crisis to go the way of the electricity crisis. We cannot afford national water load shedding on top of electricity load shedding.”

He said that the management of KwaZulu-Natal’s water resources was at breaking point and recalled that the eThekwini Metro municipality admitted that 237 million litres of water was being lost daily as a result of broken and leaking pipes.

“To fix this problem R1.5 billion is needed over the next five years to repair the ageing water infrastructure,” he told the estimated 350 people who turned out to hear him speak.

He said that while there was little that the municipality could do about climate change, better management would help preserve the country’s scarce resources.

Maimane’s visit to Illovo was the fourth stop of his launch of the DA’s Vision 2029 tour in KwaZuluNatal. On Saturday he addressed party members in Durban’s Inanda township and held a community meeting in Howick in the Midlands. – ANA