Ministerial address: Minister of Water and Sanitation Nomvula Mokonyane
The low levels of water security are a paramount threat to the economy
In her opening remarks the minister advised the delegates that, together with 192 other countries, South Africa has committed itself to the achievement of the new globally set Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), one of which is Goal Six, the objective of which is to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
Key points of the minister’s address
• Water security and management are vital components for social and economic development in South Africa. Putting in place appropriate internal measures will enable a significant benefit in realising external opportunities to save water and use it more efficiently. It is also imperative that those in the sector to think innovatively about new ways of making water available outside the traditional engineering solutions of supply-side infrastructure development.
• Growing populations and economies, changing lifestyles and global climate change are all increasing the pressure on the planet’s water resources. People and nature alike are threatened by a lack of responsible water management. Water is a resource with a diversified utility; it is the basis of life itself and it is not produced.
• There is a need to review the projected capital needs of water, wastewater, and storm-water utilities, and be able to estimate the associated economic benefits (the economic opportunities created by water infrastructure projects, the long-term productivity savings to the customers of water utilities, as well as avoiding the costs of frequent disruptions in water and wastewater services to business) that would be realised if we were to make those investments.
• Investment is needed to maintain current infrastructure and pipes, pumps, and plants that reach the end of their expected life lifespan must be replaced. Water infrastructure capital needs are growing rapidly, yet investment in water infrastructure is not keeping pace.
• There are mixed reactions to changes in policy in the water sector, but the aim is to empower the current water and sanitation policy environment with a new partnership between the public sector, the private sector and civil society to build a powerful and effective Team Water SA rather than replacing the policy altogether.
• New partnerships are being sought with the business and investment sectors to ensure water security in South Africa in a manner that firstly, ensures access to safe water and sanitation universally and is in line with the SDGs; secondly, with the goal of making water available to enable and encourage economic growth and prosperity in ways that enhance South Africa’s competitiveness; and thirdly, is characterised by the best science and innovation that will help make South Africa one of the leading water countries to enable us to play our role internationally and help move the world to higher levels of water security.
• Global and local risk registers have been followed that have shown that low levels of water security is a paramount threat to our economy and intimately affects every sector of that economy — from agriculture to tourism, from mining to retail — as we have seen in the past three years.
• Upgrading infrastructure to world-class standards by refurbishing the current networks, simultaneously modernising them with such interventions as realtime monitoring with distribution sensor networks converting the water and sanitation networks into intelligent systems.
• Crowd investment: The department of water and sanitation (DWS) is seeking crowd investment to mitigate the gap in the funding model provided by the fiscus, as well as internalising new ideas to resolve various challenges experienced in the water and sanitation space.
• Working on metering, billing and efficient collection by the municipality, and ensuring that the municipalities pay their bills to the Water Boards and the DWS.
• There is also a special focus on the municipality universe. This is the coal-face of our individual experiences of water services and water stress. Local government needs to be monitored through the blue drop and green drop annual reports, which reveals that while there have been significant improvements in some cases, we know that we need to induce radical changes at local government level.