Hon House Chair, South Africa is facing a tremendous life threatening process as dam levels are critically low. While water scarcity is threatening a livelihood of all South Africans, more than 40% of the country's portable water is lost due to leakages. While the drought is ravaging South Africa, leaks and poor water infrastructure lead to tremendous loss of water and dysfunctional sewage plants result in a large amount of sewage flowing into the rivers and dams contaminating these scarce source.
This is due to a total collapse of local government; municipalities are failing to do their essential maintenance to curb this water loses and stop the pollution. The biggest failure of the ANC-led government is local government. Collapse of infrastructure, outstanding debt to Eskom and water boards, corruption, fraud and looting, lack of compliance with laws and regulation, no consequence management and a complete lack self delivery.
The ANC-led government has destroyed the local government. Poor local government leads to the lack of business investors' confidence, less tourism and lack of job opportunities. The people of South Africa are suffering and the future of the country is being fated. Municipalities and the provincial administration are not showing any improvement. Examples are the Mafube Local Municipality where community members are forced to provide essential services themselves although rate taxes are being paid.
The Auditor-General has identified the lack of political will and effective consequence to the major cause of poor
local government audit outcomes. The solution is to become stricter with consequent driven governance; not all the municipalities but rather smaller and more community development in municipalities. With smaller municipalities, better management and the will to affect the necessary changes rode our economy and the healthy environment. The effects of natural disasters such as droughts can be mitigated. Thank you.