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The Democratic Alliance (DA) commends the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa, for considering alternative methods to fund the building and maintenance of water infrastructure. Yesterday, while attending the World Water Forum in Marseille, the Minister announced that the government hoped to attract R25bn from foreign investors to help finance the necessary infrastructure maintenance and overcome current backlogs.

Water infrastructure within many municipalities, notably water purification works and waste water treatment works (WWTWs), is in a poor state. Reports of the Department of Water in 2009 revealed for example that, in Limpopo, 95% of WWTWs had flows that either exceeded design capacity or were unknown. In the Northern Cape and the Free State over 90% of the WWTWs were non-compliant with effluent quality standards.

The very lifeblood of our economy will be under threat if water delivery and water quality are not increasingly prioritised. During the debate on the reply to the President’s State of the Nation Address I noted that, while the promised new bulk water infrastructure was welcome, water infrastructure and the health of our water courses could only function optimally if all interlinking components of the water infrastructure network were in good working order. I referred specifically to failing municipal infrastructure.

The Minister’s desire to hand over the development, maintenance and operation of some WWTWs to private companies is sensible. Considering the poor state of WWTWs in so many municipalities, and the costs these plants externalise onto the environment, and further considering that many municipalities do not have the engineering skills to maintain and operate plants, a coordinated and workable solution to improving this municipal infrastructure is necessary. The state has proved that it cannot manage the task alone, hence the private sector should be encouraged to help solve the problem where necessary. This would not affect the national Department’s role as a regulator of standards.

The DA has long maintained that the Minister and her Department needed to become leaders in water planning. The latest announcement by the Minister and her commitment to improving all components of water infrastructure, not just the bulk water infrastructure which her Department is usually associated with, is welcome. The DA will be monitoring the developments closely, and trusts the Minister will provide greater details of her plans during her budget speech to Parliament in May.