Edna Molewa, Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs

In 1994, only 59% of the population had access to clean and safe drinking water. Eighteen years later, we have progressed to a national average of 94.7% access to basic water services for all South Africans – an increase of 35.7%.

The backlog now stands at 5.3%, or some 710 000 households, compared to the 3.9 million households in 1994. This trend illustrates that the government’s performance is on an upward trend. In spite of this, there are still many rural areas and informal settlements close to our urban areas without water. Even more worrying is the fact that there are areas where post-1994 infrastructural deficiencies are still characterised by taps that have run dry due to poor maintenance or operational problems. Such an unacceptable state of affairs dictates that functional water infrastructure and quality services to the remaining 5.3% of the population become a task to be undertaken with a sense of urgency. It is critical that our water policies should support and act in unison with the goals of a democratic developmental state. We are conducting a policy review during this financial year, in parallel with a review of the three pieces of legislation that fall under our jurisdiction: the National Water Act, the Water Services Act and the Water Research Act.

The streamlining of these three pieces of legislation will ensure that they too, serve the purposes of the developmental state effectively and enable us to meet the needs of our people in relation to water services, economic growth and development. Flowing from this review, the effective involvement of all stakeholders – particularly the poor and the marginalised in decision making processes – is one of the indispensable and critical components that will ensure that we manage our water in a way that supports the purposes of a developmental state. To this end, we are finding innovative ways to incorporate the inclusive consultative and participatory mechanisms in the law. Together, we owe it to future generations of our country to find viable ways to ensure water security.