Water and Sanitation Minister Nomvula Mokonyane said during a recent briefing of business that it was imperative to “sort out the hierarchy” of South Africa’s water management, by not only combining the Water Act and the Water Services Act, but prioritising policy reform on water and sanitation in the country.

Speaking at an event hosted by the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Minister highlighted that local municipalities had always been the local authorities on water management.

“On what basis?” she asked, noting that it was based on the assumption that, as local governments were closer to communities, they should be in charge of the water and sanitation value chain.

“There are few municipalities that have that management capacity,” Mokonyane said, adding that, through policy reform, the Water and Sanitation Minister would have full oversight and authority on the value chain.

She further noted that to tackle the challenges of water supply in areas where water mismanagement had been rife, including the North West province, drought-stricken KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, her department intended to implement its proposed 15-year Master Plan before year-end.

This was aimed at tackling water security, the unsustainable use of water and the pollution of fresh water systems, as well as man- aging shared water courses and basins and erasing uncoordinated institutional linkages.

She pointed out that the department had identified 27 districts in North West, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape where intervention was urgently needed to correct water shortages. The Madibeng municipality, in the North West, was one such area.

“It was comfortable for us over the past 20 years to throw money into the Hartbeespoort dam in the Madibeng district, but the solution is in rehabilitating all the province’s pipelines – not half-heartedly.

“We must take the jurisdiction over water from those municipalities as they can hardly raise revenue, as a result of their status,” Mokonyane said, adding that these municipalities were in no position to ask for funds from institutes such as the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA).

The Minister noted that, by pooling and centralising the issues and by showing the DBSA a well-constructed maintenance plan, these problems could be rectified.

“We don’t want money to sort out just the Hartbeespoort dam, we want money to sort out the bulk infrastructure in the North West and parts of Pretoria,” she added.