The right to clean water is being denied us

At the time of writing, it has been almost a month since the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) released its Blue, Green and No Drop reports. These reports offer a shocking insight into the current state of South Africa’s water quality. In this week’s issue we speak to stakeholders about what the findings of these reports mean for agriculture, and how poor water quality is affecting agriculture (see story on page 17).

Farmer’s Weekly previously covered the report, and so I will not rehash the findings here, but will provide a quick summary. The Blue Drop Watch Report investigates the current condition of drinking water infrastructure and treatment processes across 144 Water Services Authorities (WSA) in the country. These WSAs provide drinking water for domestic, commercial and business use via water-supply systems. According to the most recent report, 46% of the country’s water supply systems did not meet the required standards and were labelled “poor” or “bad”. Twenty-nine percent were identified as being in a critical state. While some provinces performed better than others, some experts are concerned that the department was not adequately warning consumers of the dangers of consuming water that is essentially unsuitable for drinking. BusinessTech reported that Dr Ferrial Adam, executive manager of WaterCAN, said it was a crisis and that consumers should not drink water from water-supply systems that did not meet the required criteria.

Despite many media reports having been published about the appalling outcome of the Blue Drop Watch Report, I have seen few warning consumers of the dangers of consuming unsafe drinking water. Indeed, water-borne illnesses like cholera remain a real and imposing threat.

Moreover, I have seen little in the way of an action plan by the DWS to address the ever-deteriorating water quality in South Africa. A recent article by GroundUp said the DWS could not “directly intervene” when municipalities failed to deliver safe drinking water, which makes me wonder what the function of the DWS is, if not to ensure that consumers have access to clean and safe drinking water. The GroundUp article further elaborates that “under current water legislation, the department’s only recourse is for the minister in consultation with the minister for Provincial Affairs and Constitutional Development to request the relevant province to intervene in terms of Section 139 of the Constitution”.

Considering that this process requires one arm of legislature to hold another to account, my faith in Section 139 is small. The Water Services Amendment Bill was tabled in Parliament in November 2023 to reportedly allow the department to issue directives to municipalities that fail to provide clean drinking water. But introducing new legislation can take years, and from the latest Blue Drop report, it is clear that South Africa does not have the time for such legislation to take effect.

What we need is a government that takes human rights seriously.

We all have a right to access safe drinking water; this is a right that government is failing to provide. For now, the best advice I can give is that consumers boil their water before drinking it!