Transcript Summary Outcomes of the Provincial Water Indaba

SUMMARY
OUTCOMES OF THE
PROVINCIAL WATER
INDABA
Some emerging issues for the sector
WSLG 19 November 2009
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CONTEXT
• The Minister has recently initiated an embarked on
Provincial Water Indabas
• The Provincial Water Indabas are meant to provide
a platform for DWA-provincial government liaison
and broadly allow for engagement with various
provincial water sector stakeholders
• To date five provincial indabas have been held:
Eastern Cape, North West, Limpopo, Mpumalanga
and KZN. The remainder are scheduled between
November and January 2010.
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Summary Overview
EMERGING THEMES, MESSAGES
AND ISSUES FOR THE SECTOR
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Issues requiring national attention
• Climate change is a reality:
 Limpopo, Eastern Cape and North West are experiencing
drought. National government must work on drought relief
programmes in the immediate, and develop climate
change adaptation and mitigation measures
• The state of Waste Water Treatment Works is a
concern:
 A concerted effort by national government to alleviate
problems is urgently needed
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Issues requiring national attention (2)
• The system of local government must be
reviewed
 Revisit S78 legislation; powers and functions between
DMs and LMs; authorisation of LMs; WSP arrangements;
funding; etc
• Review of MIG conditions:
Ensure that MIG effectively responds to all
infrastructure challenges affecting LG (funding vs
backlog, higher LOS, bulk connector
infrastructure, etc)
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Issues requiring national attention (3)
• Urgent attention must be given to skills
development:
 Shortage of technical skills is cited as the main contributor
to infrastructure asset management problems
• Implement a systematic performance
assessment of WSAs:
 This should address timeous response to service delivery
failures and identification of appropriate and targeted
interventions
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Issues requiring national attention (4)
• Water Allocation Reform must be aligned to land
reform:
 Measures to support agrarian reform must clearly
recognise and respond to this link
• Institutional reform/realignment must be
concluded:
 There is a lot of uncertainty on proposals and status
 There is scope to expand role of water boards to support
local level infrastructure development, operation and
maintenance; establish CMAs and conclude regulation
model
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Issues requiring national attention (5)
• Increase regulation capacity in the DWA
regional offices:
 Measures to improve regulation will largely depend on the
capacity of the regions to regulate
• Research alternative mechanisms for
infrastructure funding, especially for WS:
 Noting the limited available funding from national fiscus,
WSAs must be guided on alternative but sustainable
funding sources
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Issues requiring national attention (6)
• Complete reconciliation studies to inform
provincial socio-economic planning:
 The outcomes and recommendations of reconciliation
studies are seen as critical inputs into the evaluation of
feasibility of provincial water-dependent development
proposals
• Enforce Blue Drop Certification:
 Participation in this process must not remain voluntary
given the importance of ensuring compliance to DWQM
standards. All WSAs must participate
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Highlights
PROVINCIAL-LEVEL ISSUES
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Common Provincial Highlights
• The provincial water sector plans must be reviewed to align
with revised PGDS. These plans must be supported by
provincial water infrastructure master plans that will address
bulk water availability, infrastructure development and
allocations to support various uses
• Suitable provincial sector structures must be established to
allow for increased oversight by provincial government on both
political and administrative levels
• Rainwater Harvesting programmes must be implemented
• Strong water conservation awareness programmes must be
implemented to raise the social and economic values of water
and alert users about scarcity
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Thank You
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