DA is lying about water cuts, says Mchunu

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has found itself in hot water after Water and Sanitation Minister Senzo
Mchunu accused the party of lying about planned water outages for maintenance.

The minister was responding to the DA’s #GautengWaterCrisis campaign on Tuesday.

DA Gauteng spokesperson for cooperative governance and traditional affairs Solly Msimanga said residents faced a severe water crisis due to Rand Water’s incompetence and failure to provide water tankers to the those affected during the water outages caused by the maintenance of water infrastructure.

“I didn’t know the DA would descend to this level, but this is downright lying,” said Mchunu.

He added the DA was desperate to communicate with people, thinking they were better than the government.

“We feel like Rand Water may be falling into political abuse by the DA without any evidence,” he said.

Mchunu said the department supported Rand Water and how it did its job.

“I don’t know where in the world they can call Rand Water incompetent.”

Mchunu said he was not just supporting Rand Water but also encouraging the entity to stick to the way they did things. Mchunu reminded the public the country was water-scarce and said there was a need for everyone to use water sparingly.

Chief executive Sipho Mosai said as a bulk water utility, Rand Water supplied 30 million consumers across Gauteng and parts of Limpopo, North West and the Free State with water.

ALSO READ: Rand Water hits back at Solly Msimanga’s water crisis comments

“Currently we supply without failure 5 000 million litres of water a day,” he said, adding it was equivalent to about 2 000 Olympic swimming pools.

He said Rand Water planned to spend R22.6 billion on infrastructure upgrades in the 2022 financial year.

Political analyst Daniel Silke said the constant blame game between various bodies doesn’t help anyone. He said the pointing of fingers between Rand Water and the DA, or other organisations, just made it worse.

Silke added the public largely blamed political heads when things went wrong.

“The public doesn’t know whose line function or whose responsibility it is. But the political office bearers will have to face the consequences of the decay of infrastructure.”

Political analyst Piet Croucamp said the purpose of political parties was to verify service delivery.

“Especially at the local level, it is precisely the part of parties to review utilities and maintain the capacity of local government at these institutions to provide certain services.”

He said organisations such as Outa, AfriForum and Solidarity also function as regulators.