Human Rights Commission must investigate drinking water crisis

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) has lodged a complaint with the South African Human Rights Commission, calling for an investigation into maladministration within the Department of Water and Environment (DWS), which threatens the supply and quality of drinking water in South Africa.

The complaint followed after Outa became aware of the Department’s continual failure to monitor and enforce compliance of water service institutions in terms of its Constitutional mandate, as per section 195.

According to Outa, water management is deteriorating annually and the root cause of the problem is a lack of monitoring and enforcement by government.

“Having access to sufficient healthy water is a basic human right as written in our Constitution,” said Julius Kleynhans, Outa’s Portfolio Director: Water and Environment. “The people of South Africa should feel confident that their water quality and supply is able to support population and economic growth.”

Outa’s complaint also exposes human rights violations related to excessive pollution caused by municipal sewage being discharged into rivers and dams, at levels that are well above acceptable. “The majority of drinking water supplied by municipalities to citizens is from rivers and dams. If a municipality fails to adequately treat sewage, water users and municipalities downstream may be affected by the contaminated water,” Kleynhans added.

According to the most recent data from the DWS:

• 76 per cent of municipal drinking water systems fail to comply with drinking water quality standards through chemical compliance and 20 per cent fail to comply with microbiological compliance as indicated in the 2014 Blue Drop Report.

• 93 per cent of South Africa’s waste water treatment systems do not comply with discharge standards according to the 2013 Green Drop Report. Current figures on the DWS website indicate that in March 2017, 3,7 megalitres (i.e. 3,7 billion litres) of waste water is discharged every day, effectively polluting our rivers and drinking water supplies, placing the health of millions of South Africans at risk.

•36,4 per cent of treated drinking water is lost due to leakage within urban infrastructure as indicated by the 2012 Non-Revenue Water Report.

• The Custodian and Regulator indicated that the lack of monitoring or enforcing compliance occurs because of limited human and financial resources, yet the Minister left R2 billion of her 2014/ 2015 budget unspent.

•98 per cent of all water in South Africa has been allocated to demand. The country will need 32 per cent more water to cater for future needs by 2030. Unfortunately, the Minister has delayed the Lesotho Highland Water Project Phase 2, extending the date of operation to possibly 2026, which is now several years behind the initial plans to meet Gauteng’s water demands.

Outa believes this has become a human rights issue of serious proportions and is concerned that civil society organisations are having to hold Government to account for not doing its job. Outa trusts the public will realise the dire consequences of this issue and get behind Outa to fight for their rights.

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