End of the beginning of Vaal’s crisis?

Not only has government allocated R8 billion for the restoration and upgrade of Emfuleni’s shattered wastewater infrastructure, but Water and Sanitation Minister, Lindiwe Sisulu, with cabinets approval, has secured control for the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) of the Wastewater Infrastructure, in terms of Chapter 8, Section 63, of the Water Services Management Act of 1997.

The prime reason for the drastic step, as the Water Research Commission’s Dhesigan Naidoo explains in a recent Daily Maverick opinion piece, was the need to come to the rescue of the Integrated Vaal River System (IVRS).

For the first time, since the early 2000s, there is reason for optimism. We trust that government will now put its money where its mouth is.

There remains a more complex problem: Emfuleni Local Municipality. The University of the Witwatersrand’s Marius Pieterse, in a recent academic article – published in Urban Forum, reported on empirical research he had conducted on the structural factors leading to Emfuleni’s collapse of municipal governance.

For many years the local and national media have reported on the critical state of South Africa’s largest local municipality (pop. ~850 000). Pieterse’s research reporting, dating back to 2016 is based on discussions and interviews with local stakeholders.

He spoke to councillors, officials, residents, private sector and civil society. Against the backdrop of substantial and insightful stakeholder disclosures, Pieterse cites the deeper problems of municipal demarcation, intergovernmental relations, urban autonomy, and local government financing as key problem areas.

Political power play between governmental departments and the inability of officials at the coalface, to get their act together, clearly play a pivotal role.

But there is also a collective consciousness crisis. We have lost confidence as a collective of residents – irrespective of race or class. It is an intangible social-ecological issue, Pieterse does not explore this – maybe because of its complexity.

Our crisis predates 1994. For many of us there is no other place to go to. Many do not want to move. Most cannot. So, we survive in an existential mode of subsistence. As we approach the municipal elections later this year it is perhaps time for us to re-invent our sense of local patriotism.

There was a time when the Vaal Triangle’s Vereeniging, Vanderbijlpark, Meyerton and Sasolburg were in fierce competition to become South Africa’s top municipalities. They were formidable. Since 1994 only Meyerton somehow managed to make the grade. Although sophisticated party politics, planning and scheming, no doubt, have played a key role in that local municipality’s progress, there is more to it than fickle political party shenanigans.

There is lots of cultural capital in Midvaal – smallest partner of the former Vaal Triangle. That cultural capital is currently evident in residents’ local patriotism.

Winning people’s minds by instilling a passion and affinity for what belongs to us, like our homes, our neighbourhoods, our townships and most of all: our fellow residents.

Winning the hearts and minds of friends and neighbours becomes possible when we trust each other. It takes a crisis to create solidarity. We certainly have learnt much from the environmental disaster caused by wastewater to Emfuleni and the Vaal River Barrage.

Its restoration and conservation should generate cultural capital for a new local patriotism. Who knows? Maybe Emfuleni may just re-emerge out of the ashes like the mythical Phoenix. It requires trust and civic pride.