Act more, talk less, say MPs
2009-08-19 20:33
Cape Town - Stop talking and start acting, MPs told water affairs officials on Wednesday, after hearing they were set to embark on another set of summits and stakeholder consultations.
Members of Parliament's water and environmental affairs portfolio committee had earlier listened to a briefing on the department's recently-released "Water for Growth and Development (WfGD)" framework.
The briefing comes against a background of widely-reported breakdowns in sewage-treatment infrastructure, dangerously high faecal counts in many rivers, and rising levels of discontent among thousands of South Africans who remain without access to decent sanitation and potable water.
Water security
Water affairs chief director for resource directed measures, Harrison Pienaar, told the committee the WfGD offered "a perspective of how to achieve water security" in South Africa by 2030.
The WfGD aimed, among other things, to put water provision at the centre of all planning; ensure access to basic water for all; and balance social, economic and environmental water needs, Pienaar said.
Democratic Alliance MP Annette Lovemore said it was "absolutely amazing" the framework had to go through a process of consultation to get Cabinet approval.
"The water situation is in crisis... Why are we constantly negotiating... and not enforcing? When are we going to adopt a zero-tolerance approach?" she asked.
United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa called on the department to tell the committee how far they were in terms of implementing what they had been talking about for years.
"Where's the programme to finish what was started?" he asked.
'We want action'
Committee chairperson Makhotso Sotyu told the department: "What is important now is action; we want action!"
Speaking to Sapa after the briefing about the criticism, Pienaar admitted his department need to move faster.
"We are not happy with the manner in which we're responding to [the problems]... What we want to do is have other sectors agree, and also accept the fact that what we've done to date is not enough, and we need to move faster.
"What is equally important is we want to ensure there is not just a top-down approach because we [would then] be imposing on our counterparts in government. So we don't come across as being punitive to industry only," he said.
Fines and prosecutions
Asked how many municipalities had been fined or prosecuted over the past year for discharging untreated sewage into rivers - a major problem in some parts of the country - he conceded that none had been.
"Look, the conditions being put in the water-use licence are in most cases not being adhered to... It's only recently that we're starting to issue directives."
He said the department was shifting its stance towards municipalities to one where it offered less support and more regulation.
Asked how many mining companies had been fined or prosecuted for water pollution, he replied: "There's a number of cases that are happening. Unfortunately, that information is quite confidential because it's a question of taking certain [of them] to court."
- SAPA