‘Blue and No Drop’ report shows decline in drinking water quality
The Department of Water and Sanitation says it will work with the Municipal Infrastructure Agency and National Treasury to address the key findings in the worst-performing municipalities.
Minister Senzo Mchunu confirmed this during the release of the Blue and No Drop report on Tuesday.
The report found that there has been a decline in the performance of many municipal drinking water systems since the last report in 2014.
Gauteng was ranked as the province with the highest percentage of drinking water systems with excellent or good quality at 62%, followed by the Western Cape at 50%.
Mchunu said the action plan includes the provision of grants worth more than R20 billion per annum to municipalities as well as technical and engineering support.
"Despite all the support being provided to municipalities, the drop reports indicate that water services continue to decline and that fundamental reform is required to arrest and turn around the decline in municipal water and sanitation services.
"In this regard, DWS has recently gazetted the Water Services Amendment Bill for public comment. The Water Services Act distinguishes between the roles of the Water Services Authority and Water Services Provider in municipalities.
"The WSA is the part of the municipality that is responsible for ensuring that water services are provided according to national norms and standards and the WSP is the part of the municipality which is responsible for providing the service.
"The Bill introduces a compulsory operating license system for WSPs, to be managed by DWS as the national regulator. This will enable WSAs to ensure that WSPs have minimum competency, capability, and performance levels in future."
The minister urged the worst-performing municipalities to use the report as an opportunity to implement changes.
"You are being called upon to do a turnaround and make improvements because, as we have observed, people out there expect nothing less than high-quality water that we provide to them for drinking.
"DWS has requested WSAs with water or wastewater systems in a critical state to submit detailed corrective action plans to DWS and are offered support to produce these plans. The minister and deputy ministers of Water and Sanitation spend most of their time crisscrossing the country, visiting those municipalities with severe challenges with water and sanitation services, and DWS and Water Boards are supporting many of the municipalities to implement improvement plans agreed to by the Ministry and municipal leadership."
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