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The growing pollution of rivers and dams in South Africa is only going to get worse, unless the Department of Water significantly ramps up its ability to act against polluters and users that illegally use and discharge water. In reply to a DA parliamentary question, the new Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa, has revealed that the Department of Water is shockingly under-resourced when it comes to compliance and enforcement. The so-called Blue Scorpions, who have the responsibility of enforcing the National Water Act, have a vacancy rate of 79% across their regional offices, while at a national level the vacancy rate is 36%.

The Minister must fill these vacancies. In addition she must ensure that environmental management inspectors in the other Department she oversees, the Department of Environmental Affairs, are accredited and trained to enforce the National Water Act. There are approximately 200 Green Scorpions across South Africa who deal with environmental pollution, and these people could significantly improve the capacity to ensure good administration of water law. The Minister is expected to create synergies between the Departments of Water and Environmental Affairs, but these have not yet begun to be explored. In addition, the Minister should engage with business and civil society organisations to establish whether any water professionals could be seconded to her Department until such time as all vacancies are filled.

There are rapidly escalating concerns from civil society, most notably from environmental NGOs, farming and ratepayer organisations, about the deteriorating quality of water. The assault on scarce water resources by failing waste water treatment plants and industrial and mining pollution is relentless. South Africa simply does not have the dilution capacity in our rivers and dams to deal with this pollution. Water pollution is affecting water for irrigation and poses a threat to poor and vulnerable communities that draw their water directly from rivers and boreholes. It is also increasing the costs of purification processes for drinking water. In time it will increase the costs of doing business, thus negatively affecting economic growth.

The Free State regional office has the most vacancies at 11. Considering the particularly poor state of sewerage infrastructure in this province and the spate of new prospecting and mining licences in the province, these vacancies are of major concern. Other regional offices with particularly poor performance are the Eastern Cape with 10 vacancies and Limpopo with 8 vacancies.

The new Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs has to get serious about water governance in South Africa. Her Department faces a major skills crisis. Besides having no DG, a suspended acting DG and a suspended CFO, she has a weakly capacitated compliance and enforcement unit.

The Minister says in her parliamentary reply that there “are many plans in place to increase the number of officials”, but no detail is provided. There have been too many platitudes about fixing the skills shortages in the Water Department. Promises to deal with this date back to 1998. The 2004 National Water Resources Strategy highlighted the lack of skills as a problem. The latest strategic plan for the Department highlights that a skills gap analysis is required. But we already know the problem. A 79% vacancy rate for Blue Scorpions at a regional level is a sorry state of affairs. The Minister must make filling these posts her top priority in water governance.