The Environmental Affairs division of AfriForum blames Government for the current water shortages.
AfriForum’s Head of Environmental Affairs Julius Kleynhans said they warned Government in 2012, that proactive intervention is needed otherwise South Africa will face water shortage problems in 2015.
“It is three years down the line and exactly what we predicted has happened. Our input was blatantly ignored by the Government. A government that is not fazed by the issues in the country is costing the economy millions,” said Kleynhans.
He said they recently discovered that Government is the biggest culprit as to why there is a water crisis.
According to him, Government is discharging about 3 642 million litres of sewage effluent daily into our rivers and dams. This means that 74 per cent of waste-water treatment facilities are unlawfully polluting the water resources of the country.
He said the Department of Water and Sanitation has proven their incompetence.
“The department only focuses on enforcing the law against the private industry and not against the majority of polluters. Government officials need to realise that the water crisis is due to bad management, bad policies, bad planning and once again, bad maintenance. AfriForum has no faith in the Department of Water and Sanitation to fix the problem,” said Kleynhans.
He further added that it is easy for wealthy government officials to open a bottle of ice-cold water while normal citizens do not have a drop.
“Some businesses have to close their doors or lose indispensable revenue because they need to implement water-saving measures,” said Kleynhans.
He concluded and said Government blindly believes that there will always be enough water just as they believe there is enough money.
“It’s time for us to fix the water issues with all the so-called available money,” said Kleynhans.
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