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Five million South Africans still require access to a basic supply of water, Water Affairs and Forestry Minister Ronnie Kasrils said yesterday.

Speaking at a parliamentary briefing, Kasrils said 6,2-million people had received access to water since 1999, but admitted the service needed to be improved to meet the standards of the reconstruction and development programme (RDP).

"These are people who obtain water from sources that are further than 200 m away.

Our focus is to bring them water within 200 m of their households," he said.

He said the South African census, which showed rapid urbanisation and a shrinkage in the size of households, had been a real eye-opener.

"This affects us as we move up the water ladder since more household connections will be needed.

Obviously the sanitation programme will also have to deliver more toilets".

A study of a representative sample of projects funded by the department in KwaZulu-Natal found that 56,5% of the schemes were operating below RDP standards.

David Henson, of the Human Sciences Research Council, said of the 23 projects sampled, ten functioned at RDP standards, eight were working but problematic and the remaining five were not working.

He said 34,8% were not working at the RDP standard of a standpipe within 200 m of the household.

There was also evidence of poor planning.

One third of a community based in the Valley of a Thousand Hills, were given yard connections while the other two thirds had to continue walking long distances to get water.

Kasrils said he was in contact with the various role players in that community and was trying to find a solution to the problem.

The department's sanitation delivery programme also faced severe challenges in attempting to meet the target date of 2010.

"We have had to increase the sanitation subsidy which had been unchanged since 1995 to reflect inflation, from R1 200 to R2 100".

He said his department had increased delivery from 50 000 toilets last year to 85 000 this year.

"We will continue to do so until we achieve that 300 000 annually that we need to meet out target of 2010".

Kasrils said one of the ways of meeting the target was by making the sanitation programme part of the extended public works programme, a community-based job creation initiative.

"Working with municipalities, our approach would see community members trained as builders, running their own businesses.

"We estimate that with an allocation of R700-million a year we will be able to create more than 50,000 jobs over three years, 17 000 a year".

Kasrils said a new White Paper on Water Services would be presented to Cabinet in the next few weeks. The paper provides a comprehensive review of policy with respect to the water services sector in South Africa and provides a policy framework for the next 10 years.

The document, which replaces the 1994 White Paper on Water Supply and Sanitation, addresses issues of backlogs, improving levels of service and investment in water services. – Sapa.

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