Water crises see more independents in local polls

With local government elections around the corner water, and related issues like sanitation and pollution, are issues frequently raised by voters and political parties.

Where I stay in Hartbeespoort, the municipal ward’s WhatsApp group displays daily water-related messagessuch as burst pipes and blocked sewerage lines.

Hartbeespoort is part of the Madibeng local municipality, part of the Bojanala district municipality in the North West.

It had been under national government administration since May 2018 and Madibeng under provincial administration.

When a province cannot or does not fulfil its statutory obligations, according to Section 100 of the constitution, the national government may intervene.

Madibeng’s “dysfunctionality” is revealed on WhatsApp. It also shows that local government is the sphere of government closest to citizens. But water is even closer because it sustains life and limb.

Local governments deliver water into the household through a complicated reticulation system. The WaterServices Act stipulates that a water services authority is a municipality, responsible for ensuring access to water services.

Where a reticulation system is not in place, like in informal settlements, the authority finds other means to deliver
services. Many municipalities, even more functional ones, for instance, deliver water with tanker trucks.

Water delivery through functioning reticulation or mobile services speaks to water security; the individual’s access to water and sanitation services informed by context-specific perceptions of and practices related to opportunities and threats. These influence people, their surroundings, and political relationships.

The Kgetlengrivier municipality, also in the North West, is a typical example, where the dysfunction around water services created an opening for civil society to step in. Here, and in other locations in SA, the situation has evolved where leaders of interest groups involved in water service are standing as independent candidates.

We can argue that such examples where civil society organisations, businesses included, is a form of decentralisation but not the decentralisation of services as stipulated by the constitution. Decentralisation is based on the constitution’s subsidiary principle.

Duties that can be carried out more efficiently and effectively by lower government levels, like municipalities, be assigned to them. The focus is on government institutions. It is, therefore, appropriate to query the constitutionality where municipal infrastructure handed over to an interest group.

Nevertheless, the proximity of water services to citizens and water security threats and opportunities seems to be diluting the state-centric focus of decentralisation.

Decentralisation is now happening through the involvement of civil society organisations who believe they have the capabilities to deliver water services more efficiently.

Such actions have pros and cons. When water can be delivered more effectively, services could improve. The maintenance of water infrastructure is also on standard since experts monitor the delivery system constantly.

Linked to this, water savings are in the offing for water leaks are tended to timeously. However, where an interest group deliver such a service, the risk exists that it could deliver water only to certain residents or areas with links to the grouping.

This raises issues of transparency, accountability, equity and equality.

These matters are central features of the water sector where, in the past, government distributed water based on race. Where interest groups step in, communication between the grouping and other interested and effected parties are paramount to allay fears of past practices potentially becoming reality.

• Professor Richard Meissner, DPhil international politics (UP), is an associate professor in the department of political sciences of Unisa.