“The regulation function was to some extent neglected,” water affairs acting chief director of regulations Helgard Muller told members of Parliament’s water affairs portfolio committee.

“Let me admit, I think that immediately after 1994, and for some years, this function was not getting the right attention… We had to prioritise due to limited resources,” he said.

Muller’s admission comes a fortnight after the release of his department’s Green Drop Report, which assessed 449 of the country’s 852 waste water treatment plants.

It found only 32 of them qualified for so-called Green Drop status, broadly equivalent to them complying with international standards.

Further, it found that “the bulk of the (sewage) plants can be described as poor to non-functional”, implying that hundreds of millions of litres of inadequately-treated sewage was being illegally discharged each day, mainly by small town municipalities.

R23bn – the amount Water Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica says she needs to patch up the country’s collapsing sewage works – was enough.

Democratic Alliance MP Annette Lovemore said the Western Cape alone required R8bn to solve its waste water problems.

“The Western Cape is by far one of the better-performing provinces, so R23bn for the country – I wonder if this is not a serious under-estimation,” she said.

South Africa’s extensive network of sewage treatments plants, pipe networks and pump stations treats about 7.5bn litres of waste water a day.

The Water Affairs Department and the municipality have signed an agreement for the release of R20,000,000 to construct the plant in drought-stricken Plettenberg Bay.

A similar plant opened in Sedgefield near Knysna a few months ago.

The municipality’s Henry Geldenhuys said it has managed to cut water usage by 40 percent since the drought set in.

He said tenders for the plant have already been advertised.

“We hope to finalise the tenders by the middle of June and have the plant completed by the end of October.”

The proposals, details of which are contained in a document tabled at a meeting of Parliament’s water affairs portfolio committee on Tuesday, appear to fly in the face of an announcement made by Water Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica last month.

“I want to allay the fears of South Africans that there is not in the near future a possibility of a [tariff] hike. It’s not in the pipeline,” she told a media briefing at Parliament on April 13.  Questioned about this later on Tuesday, the department’s media liaison director, Linda Page, said that there was no contradiction.

“You will remember that the minister was responding to a question on whether there are likely to be tariff increases linked to funding for infrastructure and thus potential increases in the price of raw water.  “The increases that the water boards are proposing… are the normal annual increases linked to the CPIX because they operate on a cost recovery basis,”

These range from 6,2% for Umgeni Water (from R3,24 a kilolitre to R3,47), to 43% in the case of Namakwa (from R6,37 to R9,11).

Among the water boards supplying the larger metropolitan areas, Rand Water is calling for a 14,1% increase (from R3,48 a kilolitre to R3,97) and Amatola for between an eight and 8,8 percent increase.  Bushbuckridge Water is proposing a 12,46% increase.

by Sapa.

Sonjica said yesterday the bill for refurbishing the plants could rise even higher, as the figure was an estimate. She said that while there was reason for concern at the parlous state of the country’s sewage treatment works, “we have not reached crisis levels”.

She briefed journalists at the Union Buildings at the release of the much-delayed Green Drop report, an assessment of how sewage treatment works are performing.  Poorly treated waste water pollutes land and rivers, posing problems for farmers, damage to eco- systems and health risks.  Water experts have expressed concern over deteriorating conditions at the plants, which treat just under 7 600 megalitres of waste water every day.

The report puts a capital replacement value of the country’s waste water treatment systems at R23bn – the amount Sonjica says she needs to deal with “hot spots”.

Her department’s acting chief director for water services and regulation, Leonardo Manus, said R12.6bn was needed for infrastructure, R1.4bn for operational expenditure – including hiring technicians, scientists and engineers – while R9.2bn was required for pump station networks and water reticulation infrastructure.  Sonjica said the R23bn was an estimate of the cost of dealing with problems only at the 50 percent of municipal treatment works assessed.

by Xolani Mbanjwa

The City has, since 2007, installed 41000 flow-restricting water meters – supplied by three different companies – outside residents’ homes.  They are programmed to dispense a pre-agreed amount of water a day. The amount can be set to only the free 6kl (200l a day) or higher.

Tenders worth over R50-million were awarded to the three companies and other firms responsible for installing them.  The meters form part of a broader 10-year water-saving and management strategy costing about R750-million.

The audit follows a letter by the SA Municipal Workers’ Union to former mayor Helen Zille, now premier of the Western Cape, in April 2009.  The union alleged that administrative malpractices may have been involved in the awarding of contracts.  Mashoko said the city ultimately wanted the devices installed in all households. “The main reasons for this are the dire need to reduce water losses and support the poor who cannot afford to pay for services.

“Because the initial focus is on the ‘pro-poor’ initiative of the city, all indigent households – with a property value of under R88000 – are being addressed, while, in a parallel process, all new households and developments, as well as meter replacements, (will see) these devices installed,” he said.

by Shanaaz Eggington

Davis, who addressed the Wits Business School, says that, “in the not too distant future, under-investment in water infrastructure risks pitting the mining industry against its own communities, as water scarcity grows.

“It doesn’t have to be this way and value can be captured from the ongoing super-cycle,” Davis adds.

While mining companies can operate much of their own infrastructure, including power and rail transport, it will be far more difficult for them to operate water infrastructure, he says.

Between 2001 and 2008 – “the first phase of the super-cycle” – the Chilean mining industry’s contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) grew by a compound rate of 12% a year in real terms.

By contrast, the South African mining sector’s gross domestic product (GDP), over the same boom period, shrunk by 1%, in spite of the demand for coal, ferrochrome and platinum, all in abundance in South Africa.

“If, instead of shrinking, South Africa’s mining industry had achieved an average growth rate of 5% a year during the period, 45 000 additional jobs would have been created in the mining sector and R60-billion would have been added to GDP by the mining sector,” Davis says.

A recent written reply by Water Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica to a parliamentary question showed the total amount owing was now well over a billion rand, DA MP Gareth Morgan said in a statement.

“Over a billion rand owed to water boards is extraordinarily high and must surely hamper the ability of many water boards to operate effectively and to make the required infrastructure investments,” he said.

Several water boards appeared to be in a perilous situation.

“Lepelle Northern Water has over R249 million owing to it, of which over R231 million is arrears. Bushbuckridge Water has over R151 million owing to it, of which R147 million is arrears, while Sedibeng has R146 million owing to it, with over R121 million being arrears,” Morgan said.

According to Sonjica’s reply, municipalities owe water boards a total of R1, 262, 047, 056. Of this amount, R653, 416, 344 is current debt and R608, 630, 712 arrears.

By Sappa