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 Democratic Alliance (DA) parliamentary question, the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa, has revealed that the Department of Water remains 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 28% at the national office level. The reply also reveals that only the Mpumalanga regional office of the national department has a dedicated compliance, monitoring and enforcement unit (CME).

The DA will be asking parliamentary questions to establish when the Minister intends establishing dedicated compliance and enforcement units in all of the nine regional offices.

Besides urgently filling the vacancies for all Blue Scorpions across her national and regional offices, the Minister 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 more than 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. Currently, however, the Green Scorpions do not do this. The Minister is expected to create synergies between the departments of Water and Environmental Affairs, but these have not yet begun to be explored.

Only the Mpumalanga regional office has a dedicated CME unit, although 3 of its 8 posts are vacant. None of the other regional offices have dedicated Blue Scorpions. Instead, most of the individuals who enforce the Water Act in the other regional offices have dual roles, and are expected to perform other functions besides compliance. Across the regional offices there are 95 vacancies for people who are, among other things, expected to do compliance and enforcement. Shockingly, more than a third of the vacancies are in one of the national department’s regional offices, the Western Cape regional office.

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 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 Director-General and no Chief Financial Officer, she has weak capacity in compliance and enforcement of water law. Filling vacancies and establishing dedicated CME units in the regional offices of her Department is an urgent requirement.