Deputy Chair, on behalf of the ANC, I would like to confirm that South Africa is a semi-arid country with an average rainfall of about 450 mm per year, which is well below the world average of 860 mm per year. We therefore have limited water resources.
This provides us with a major challenge to ensure that we plan and research initiatives and sustainable methods to preserve our water resources. Unless we do so, South Africa will become like Somalia. Water is critical for our very existence and welfare, for both human consumption and our development as a country.
The 2002 National Water Resource Strategy states:
Water gives life. It waters the fields of farmers; it nurtures the crops and stock of rural communities; it provides recreation for our friends, our children, our families; it supports our power generation, our mines, our industries and the plants and animals that make up ecosystems. Water is the key to development and a good quality of life ...
... for all South Africa and the world.
We therefore say that to have economic prosperity, we cannot do without a proper strategy for water management. It is for this reason that the ANC in its 2007 Polokwane resolutions specifically mentioned the need for an integrated water resource management plan, particularly in terms of local government planning to ensure that water is used in a sustainable, equitable and efficient manner.
It also states that water allocation reforms and the allocation of water licences to historically disadvantaged persons must be reviewed with regard to water rights. It is the very essence of the legacy of apartheid that we are still grappling with to ensure that the poor and the disadvantaged get water, since the planning is around the perpetuation of fragmented spatial apartheid.
I am happy to note that our government, as a public trustee of the nation's water resources, has prioritised water resource management to ensure that it is in line with the Polokwane resolutions. Water should be protected, developed, conserved, managed and controlled in an equitable and sustainable manner for the benefit of all South Africans.
The National Water Resource Strategy is indeed an integrated plan to ensure that our surface and groundwater is saved and sustained, and also responds to the environmental needs of our country.
We have many positive outcomes of this strategy and water should be available to millions of our people. Everyone knows about how far we are in terms of the national targets. I am not going to talk about that, but I will only concentrate on how we manage the current situation.
Today we cannot build houses without water because the planning of our country is an integrated one. If the ANC had been in charge since 1948, we wouldn't be speaking the language we are speaking now. It is because of the legacy of the past that we are speaking as we are doing today. We are not lamenting; it is true that we are removing the dent caused by those who were very racial in their approach.
Last week, during the NCOP's Taking Parliament to the People, we heard countless calls from the uMzinyathi community. During the previsit, we went to Umvoti where we even said, as we speak now, that it will take years to ensure that the people around Umvoti get water. In terms of the status of the previous planning, it is not of our making, but we are committed to ensuring that we correct that.
In Limpopo, as we are speaking, the province has moved at least a bit in terms of taking proactive action. However, we would want to make a call to those who are implementing the building of dams that they must do so with much more passionate vigour, precisely because people can no longer wait for water. The people in Limpopo want water for agriculture, mining and consumption.
The people around De Hoop do not know whether they will get water any time soon or not, simply because there are no scientists to ensure that when the dam is totally completed they can receive water. We would like to call upon the executive to ensure that plans are made more quickly so that the pipes are not only taken to the cities and towns, but are also directed to the communities.
With regard to the issue of the Nandoni Dam in Vhembe district, the dam is complete, but the community around the dam does not receive water, not because of government but because of the shoddy work of the contractors. The pipes from the dam cannot transport water to the communities and now the litigation regarding the failure is before the courts. On the other side, people cannot wait for the court outcome. We are saying that those people must be arrested whilst the government provides an alternative so that the people of Nandoni can receive water.
Yesterday, in the local newspapers, we learnt that the Western Cape has received rainfall well below the annual average, but already there is talk of austerity measures and strict water usage controls. This could even lead to high prices of water. Water is expensive and we don't want to imagine what will happen to the poor. This is also the situation in other parts of the country.
As the MEC from Gauteng has already said, the 17th Conference of Parties of the United Nations, which will take place in Durban, should also look into this matter because part of what is causing the decrease in water resources in the country is the very fact of climate change and other factors around climate change. We might have great floods and extreme drought, but this has contributed to the shortage of water resources in South Africa.
It is fortunate that today's speakers were all positive, including the opposition, because they were in line with the strategic framework of the ANC and we congratulate them on that. As you see in this House, they have to work according to the strategies of the ruling party in ensuring that we better the lives of our people. I therefore thank you, Chairperson. [Applause.]