National satisfaction with water-related services has decreased since 2005 despite the fact that access to water has increased.

According to the recently released General Household Survey 2015, 62% of households rated the quality of water-related services they received as ‘good’. Levels of satisfaction have been decreasing steadily since 2005 when 76.4% of users rated the services as good.

An estimated 45.8% of households had access to piped water in their dwellings in 2015. A further 27% accessed water on site while 13.9% relied on communal taps and 2.7% relied on neighbours’ taps.

Although households’ access to water is improving, 4.4% of households still had to fetch water from rivers, streams, stagnant water pools and dams, wells and springs in 2015. This is a decrease of more than five percentage points from 9.5% of households that had to access water from these sources in 2002.

The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) has acknowledged the decline in levels of satisfaction compared and pledged to continue to work with municipalities to better the 62% of households that rated the quality of water-related services they received as ‘good’.

 

Sanitation stats up

Nationally, the percentage of households with access to ‘RDP-standard’ sanitation increased from 62.3% in 2002 to 80% in 2015.

The majority of households in Western Cape (93.3%) and Gauteng (91%) had access to adequate sanitation, while about half those in Limpopo (54%) and just below two-thirds of those in Mpumalanga (65.8%) had adequate access.

The percentage of households that continued to live without proper sanitation facilities declined between 2002 and 2015, decreasing from 12.3% to 4.7% during this period.

“We are also aware that access to dignified sanitation lags behind access to other services,” said the DWS in a statement.

“Provision of dignified sanitation should and must impact positively on the livelihoods of all South Africans, but more especially the women and girl-children. This sector of the populace cannot continue to be marginalised.”