Water, water, but not everywhere safe and fit for use
Cholera outbreaks reveal systemic infrastructure breakdowns that are a threat to public health, writes Fikile Xasa
Unreliable water and sanitation services are a growing concern in several municipalities, as this can have a huge impact on the health and safety of citizens. In recent months, South Africa has had cholera outbreaks in Gauteng, Mpumalanga and the Free State.
More recently, there was another suspected case of cholera in Walmer, in the Nelson Mandela Bay metro in the Eastern Cape, which again highlighted the water and sanitation challenges faced by various municipalities. By August, the national department of health had reported 1,290 suspected cases of cholera, with 199 confirmed cases among those. It has also reported 47 deaths, with 20 of those being among the confirmed cases.
In May, the epicentre of the cholera outbreak was Hammanskraal, Tshwane, while the Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg metros also recorded confirmed cases of the disease. In the Free State, cholera cases were limited to Ngwathe municipality.
The government’s rapid response to the cholera outbreak in Hammanskraal helped limit the spread of the outbreak. Public education on hygiene assisted greatly. However, such reactive measures do not address the underlying risks that contaminated and untreated water pose to public health, such as waterborne infections including cholera.
Water and sanitation infrastructure that has exceeded its design capacity and consequently struggles to meet the demand for minimum waterquality standards is the main culprit for the problems. However, poor water quality and inadequate watertreatment capacity at some of the water services authorities are not new developments. Three years before the cholera outbreak in Hammanskraal, parliament’s portfolio committee on co-operative governance & traditional affairs conducted an oversight visit to the Tshwane metro, where it flagged water-quality issues in the city. The council back then failed to prioritise making funds available for upgrading the Rooiwal wastewater treatment works. This resulted in treated effluent not meeting the requisite compliance standards being discharged into the Apies River.
Similarly, among the committee’s main findings during its oversight visit to the Sol Plaatje municipality in the Northern Cape in March this year was that the municipality’s main sewerage infrastructure, the Homevale wastewater treatment works, did not meet the specification standards set by the water & sanitation department. This meant that effluent pouring into the Vaal River was not being treated sufficiently, increasing the risk of the river being contaminated and waterborne diseases such as cholera being spread.
Municipalities to which water services authorities’ functions have been delegated are constitutionally responsible, with the support of the provincial and national government, for ensuring that communities have access to water services.
It is crucial to address underlying issues to prevent the outbreak of waterborne diseases. The government must address poor water treatment owing to underexpenditure on repairs and maintenance of water infrastructure. This under-expenditure gives rise to dry taps, low water pressure, pipe bursts, water leaks, poorly treated effluent and sewage overflows.
The committee has been informed by the Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent that several municipalities are underspending in each province on their municipal infrastructural grant (MIG) allocation. Municipalities in Limpopo and the Eastern Cape returned a greater proportion of the grant than those in other provinces. In the 2020/2021 financial year, Limpopo municipalities returned R252,046 and Eastern Cape municipalities R236,526 of their MIG allocations to the National Treasury.
The MIG, the largest conditional grant in South Africa, is an important source of funding for basic services to poor households. More importantly, the grant’s conditions have been revised to allow for 8% of the allocation to be spent on municipal infrastructure repairs and maintenance. The Treasury’s Municipal Finance Management Act circular 71 recommends that a municipality’s total repairs and maintenance expenditure should be at least 8% of the carrying value of the municipality’s property, plant and equipment, and investment property. However, the implementation of the recommended norm of 8% continues to elude most municipalities, including the water services authorities.
There are well-developed systems and mechanisms in place to prevent treatable communicable diseases such as cholera. But the onus is on the responsible organs of state to use these systems and mechanisms for the benefit of their citizens.
The government must address poor water treatment owing to under-expenditure on repairs and maintenance