Lack of skills and capacity among municipalities in South Africa is at the heart of poor water service delivery in the country.

This is according to the Chief Engineer in the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), Allestair Wensley.

Speaking at the Southern African Development Community (SADC) National Water Week-SA workshop, Wensley said insidious water leaks in households and ageing infrastructure were a great source of concern as municipalities were unable to “run a viable water service”.

He said it was important to replace water metres every nine years because if that was not done consumers would end up underpaying for water.

However, Emfuleni Local Municipality in Vereeniging was the only municipality that was succeeding in reducing the use of non-revenue (unaccounted for) water.

Wensley said the high consumption of water at 227 cubic metres per day in South Africa had to be addressed as a matter of urgency as there was an estimated population of 54 million people in the country who depended on this dwindling resource.

Water consumption in South Africa contrasted sharply with the average world consumption which stood at 174 cubic metres a day.

“The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that South Africa doesn’t have surplus water and 28% of the country’s towns have inadequate water supply.”

It’s not all doom and gloom

However, it was not all doom and gloom as the country has a total reliable yield of 98% assurance of surface water, groundwater, return flow and other sources supply of 15 billion cubic meters a year.

Current usage is estimated to be between 15 and 16 billion cubic metres per annum.

Marie Brisley, Chief Director at the DWS, said South Africa would avoid any slide into a water crisis provided there was a centrality role for water in planning and decision-making in all sectors.

“This will only be possible provided we and our partners jointly work together to achieve effective implementation of Water Conservation and Water Demand Management measures. We must also look into the large-scale effluent re-use and improve curbing of unlawful water use,” she said.

Brisley also said it was important for the department to address the deteriorating levels of water quality. Co-operation at all levels of government, including the broader water sector players, can have a positive impact in this regard.