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Numerous reports of pollution of South Africa's rivers by inadequately treated municipal sewage have been featured in the media over the past few months. A reply to a recent parliamentary question about such pollution in the Eastern Cape, following the death of eight people in the Mpheko Village in the Eastern Cape, apparently linked to drinking polluted water from the Mpheko River, confirmed high levels of faecal pollution in this and in most Eastern Cape rivers. The reply noted that "the Department discourages drinking directly from any water resource". However, the reply also admits that the affected community had been forced to drink this water after "disruption of municipal supply" - a scenario encountered all too frequently.

The Department of Water and Environmental Affairs launched, in late 2008, a Green Drop certification program for wastewater treatment works in an effort to ensure that they progressively improve their operations so as not to impact negatively on the water bodies into which they discharge their product.

On 12 May 2009, Minister Bujelwa Sonjica stated: "For too long waste water services was out of the public eye, and this allowed authorities to under-invest in the adequate maintenance and management of this essential service. The green drop certification programme will inform the general public of the excellent as well as inadequate management of waste water services of each service system."

To date, the Green Drop report has not been made public. The parliamentary Water and Environmental Affairs portfolio committee was told on Wednesday 29 August that the report is available. However, an off-the-record remark by a senior official after the meeting confirmed that the report is still "internal" and has not yet been publicly released.

I and my colleagues have recently visited numerous wastewater treatment works, and have been alarmed at the level of dysfunctionality. In Port St Johns the construction of the sewage treatment works has not proceeded beyond the rudimentary and is not functional. In Mthatha the sewage flows through the works without undergoing any meaningful purification and in Alicedale the ponds are entirely inadequate and raw sewage is discharged from the overflow point. There are many similar examples.

The Water Affairs' Medium Term Strategic Framework (2009 - 2014) provides a baseline of 30 wastewater treatment works achieving compliance with required criteria. The target for 2013/14 is that 200 wastewater treatment works should achieve Green Drop certification. This implies that a maximum of 15% of South Africa's wastewater treatment works are currently complying with required standards.

All sewage treatment works discharge into our rivers and our shores. The public has a right to know the extent of the dysfunctionality, and, more importantly, has a right to demand that the Department make public its plans to address this dysfunctionality.

The Democratic Alliance calls on the Department to make the Green Drop report public as a matter of urgency.

We will continue to relentlessly pursue the unacceptable breakdown of our wastewater treatment capability through every means available to us. We cannot accept any extension of the period of apparent inaction in addressing this issue, which has potentially fatal consequences.