Ramapromises: Where are SONA 2022’s promised water licences, Cyril?

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s 2022 promise to speed up the processing of water use licence applications has seemingly come to nothing, with officials instead accused of wholesale rejection of applications in order to clear the backlog.

In his State of the Nation Address (SONA) last year, President Ramaphosa said government has embarked on the process of institutional reform in capacitating the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS).

He said this also sought to review the mandates of water boards to ensure that they serve municipalities in terms of the District Development Model (DDM).

“A comprehensive turnaround plan is being implemented to streamline the process for water use license applications. The target is to clear the backlog of applications by June 2022 and to process 80% of all applications within 90 days during the next financial year,” Ramaphosa said at the time.

ALSO READ: One year after Sona, Ramaphosa has failed the country – analysts

The president made this commitment after the signing into effect the critical delegations to fast-track applications for water use licences in February 2021.

This delegation allowed for low risk and low volume applications to be finalised in the department’s respective regional offices instead of Pretoria only to speed up the process and clear the backlog.

Empty promise

Janse Rabie, Agri SA Legal and Policy Executive and Head of Natural Resources, agreed that the processing of new water use licence applications and the renewal of licences in many instances still took a very long time to be completed.

He said applications were often hamstrung by investigations into historic contraventions which need to be rectified.

“…simple licence applications should not take an inordinate amount of time. However, complicated integrated licence applications should always be properly considered. We also appreciate the need for thorough investigations as opposed to rushing application processes through. We continue to constructively engage with government in this regard,” Rabie said.

Three years and still waiting…

But a year on, very little or nothing has changed, with Cape Town mango farmer Bernie van den Heever battling to receive a water license for over three years now.

He wants to buy a new property and build a dam to collect flood water and develop the farm, but needs a water license for this and was excited when the commitment to speed up the process was made.

“I made use of the consulting firm … My application was rejected and since then we did not sort it out, because now I’m not sure if the consulting firm put in my reapplication as requested a couple of months ago,” Van den Heever dejectedly said.

ALSO READ: SONA 2023: ‘Ramaphosa’s address will have political consequences’

Wholesale rejections

The Cape Town-based firm, HDL Consulting, confirmed that although there was widespread excitement on the promise to speed up the process, there was no real improvement.

Civil engineering technician, Hester Lyons, a former employee of the department of water sanitation, established the firm to assist farmers with their water use application process.

“I do have around 80 applications that formed part of the backlog whereby [DWS] promised to FastTrack the finalisation of it. 

“The fast tracking was, however, not evident as most of the backlog applications were declined.  Some applications were over 750 days in the DWS Bellville office without any progress, and then the decline letters started streaming in to get rid of the backlog applications,” he said.

Lyons said this happened after officials from other regions were deployed to assist, saying the Bellville office was the worst in terms of the backlog.  

“…I did not see any positive progress in terms of the evaluation of licences. The delegation to the Regional Office did not add value to the assessment process as the delegated officials are either not in the office to sign off or they perform a further assessment even after the application was presented and recommended by [the assessment committee],” he said.

According to Lyons, the appeal process was even more time consuming and costly and the outcome was still unknown to water users that need confirmation on the legal status of their water use.  

The cost of an application is also very high in terms of various authorisation processes and specialist studies that are required, with Lyons saying the department did not differentiate between small scale farmers and a mining company. 

The department has, however, refuted claims of rejecting applications to clear the backlog and that each application was assessed on its own merits, with a decision made in the interest of water resource management.

NOW READ: SONA-2023-repeat-same-empty-promises