Hon Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces, hon Deputy Minister Ms Rejoice Mabudafhasi, hon Deputy Chair, hon Chief Whip, hon members of this august House, and all of you esteemed ladies and gentlemen, it is indeed a great pleasure for me to stand before you to deliver our very first Budget Review in the NCOP, as the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs.
I sincerely welcome this opportunity to share with hon members the progress made, the challenges that lie ahead and the plans for the management of our environmental and water resources in ensuring that service delivery is attained and actually given to our people.
Just a month ago, the people of South Africa spoke through the ballot box in the 2011 local government elections, placing their confidence in the ANC- led government. We will not disappoint them.
It is against this background that I would like to share with you some of the milestones that have been achieved as we work together with our people.
I will start with the water sector. When our government took office in 1994, a mere 62% of households in South Africa had access to drinking water, and I dare say clean drinking water. Today, that figure stands at an average of 93%. I would like to take this opportunity ... [Interjections.] Listen to English - "average" - and then you will not make that comment.
I would like to take this opportunity to dedicate this important work that has been done to our stalwart and many others who came after him, Prof Kader Asmal, whose work it was that really brought us this service delivery.
We are working hard to continue to achieve the 100% that is needed. We are also collaborating with our local government to increase their capacity to deliver quality services to all South Africans. We are aware that many of our rural communities have, in many instances, actually been bypassed by our bulk infrastructure, which we will attend to through better planning that will help us to close the existing service delivery gaps. We will also undertake to deal with the challenge of illegal water connections to our infrastructure.
I want to take half a minute, or just a fraction of a minute, to explain what I am talking about, and the importance of ensuring that we support local government. Many of our rural people still do not have water, as I have said. This result does not have to do with the 93% that has been delivered, but is a result of a gap that exists between where water is provided and the infrastructure that links it to the people. This is really a very serious weakness that we are attending to.
The water sector is a strategic catalyst for job creation and economic development. Virtually all strategic sectors that are drivers of the New Economic Growth Path depend, in large measure, on the availability of water as a resource, including mining, energy, industry and agriculture, as well as social development. What can we do without water? It is important that we locate water at the centre of the development of our people in general.
Our reconciliation strategy of our capacity to meet our water needs tells a great story indeed - a challenge in the management of resources, as we have already identified. We will have to respond to this challenge of water availability and provision for economic growth. Measures in this regard include, amongst other things, the exploration of our groundwater reserves; the desalination of seawater in coastal areas; the harvesting of rainwater; recycling and reusing approaches; inter-basin transfers, and the very important behavioural issue of water conservation. We cannot afford to waste water, anywhere, any time in South Africa.
South Africa's drinking water ranks amongst the best in the world. There are only a handful of countries globally where one can actually drink water directly from a tap with confidence. And we are proud to say that South Africa is actually one of those few countries. We comply with set World Health Organisation standards, and intend to keep it that way. Critical to this effort is increasing the capacity of local government to deliver quality water services to more people, so that the sewer that continues to leak, in some instances, owing to broken infrastructure, is actually dealt with.
On this score, the following are most important in dealing with the quality of water. An integrated approach to water provision is needed to ensure a continual supply from source to tap. I dare say source to tap again, because we do not have to see any further infrastructure bypassing the people and going to either an Eskom plant or an agricultural irrigation scheme.
The other important aspects include the refurbishment of waste water treatment infrastructure including through our Accelerated Community Infrastructure Programme; enhancing water and waste water treatment skills through mandatory training; consistent monitoring by our emergency response facility; a targeted, risk-based regulation system to ensure that all municipalities are informed of risks, with tangible targets set for improvements in water planning; and strengthening the Blue and Green Drop certification programme to ensure that local authorities are capacitated in waste water management. In this regard, we would like to indicate that the Blue Drop and Green Drop 2011 report will soon be released. It will give insight into municipal service delivery of quality drinking water and the state of municipal waste water treatment works.
As far as our water-related regulation and transgressions are concerned, we will continue to increase and strengthen the enforcement capacity of the Blue Scorpions. We have increased the issuing of directives against transgressors and successful prosecution of these. We have strengthened and are further strengthening our verification and validation processes in clamping down on water theft and other unlawful activities. We have continued with the application of the polluter pays principle without fear or favour.
Finally, on our legislative review process, we aim to address the negative consequences emanating from the practice of water entitlement by certain sectors of our society. We will make possible the reallocation of water resources to other sectors of the economy and indeed to our people, especially those sectors that have been identified as critical in advancing the objectives of the New Growth Path. We will also make possible the reallocation of water resources to new human settlements across the country.
On water security and security of supply, we would like to highlight that we need to deal continually with the exploration of ground water as a further strategic source and increase the use of rain harvesting, as I said earlier; train and support municipalities on ground water management; establish a national ground water archive and support the municipalities with the implementation of artificial recharge where feasible; continue to monitor ground water resources, especially in the context of extraction, acid mine drainage, transboundary aquifers and climate variability; and explore the potential of the desalination of seawater, and we have already begun doing that in the Bitou municipality, particularly in Sedgefield, George and Mossel Bay in this province. In Mpumalanga we will implement the Mokolo and Crocodile River West water augmentation project, to the tune of about R2 billion, to deliver water to Eskom's new Medupi Power Station and other industries in that area and to the people in the Lephalale area for domestic use.
We are constructing the Spring Grove Dam on the Mooi River in KwaZulu- Natal, at a cost of R2,2 billion, and investing R91 million to raise the Hazelmere Dam to augment the water supply to Umgeni Water. In the Limpopo area we will construct a water conveyance system from the Vaal Dam to Secunda to augment supply to power stations in Sasol.
Added to this, there are a number of other water projects around the country, such as water treatment works which I know the Deputy Minister is working on, and a bulk distribution system. We will also be looking at the Nandoni Dam in Limpopo, and completing a pipeline from Flag Boshielo to Mokopane. Feasibility studies and designs of the Umzimvubu and Foxwood Dams have also begun. There are also the distribution pipelines and reticulation networks from the Jozini Dam in KwaZulu-Natal; and there is the Groot Letaba augmentation project, consisting of the raising of the Tzaneen Dam. In addition, we are finalising plans for the construction of the Nwamitwa Dam and the associated water treatment plants and bulk distribution pipelines.
Plans are well advanced to conclude an agreement with Lesotho with regard to the second phase of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, in order for us to be able to augment water provision in the area of Gauteng.
On the quality side, I am pleased to announce that later this month we will host the third Municipal Water Quality Conference from 27 to 30 June, which is next week, in order to bring together the municipality and water service institutions, as well as our civil society and private sector partners to look at the issue of water quality. The theme of the conference is: "Changing the landscape of municipal water quality in South Africa".
In a broader context, we are currently leading and presiding over the African Ministers' Council on Water and the specialised committee in that regard.
When it comes to environmental matters, keeping our biodiversity intact is indeed vital to ensure the integrity of ecosystems, such as clean water and clean air. Loss of biodiversity puts our economy and quality of life at risk, and reduces socioeconomic options for future generations.
Sadly, we have seen over 50% of our wetland systems being destroyed, and that is really very serious. We cannot afford to have that happening continually. Over 80% of our river systems are threatened, and we are amongst the world's top 20 greenhouse-gas-emitting countries.
Our efforts to address these challenges include environmental education and awareness to empower our people to make sustainable livelihoods a reality; catchment rehabilitation; the clearing of water-consuming invasive alien plants; and rainwater harvesting.
The effects of climate change are becoming a reality, with increased frequency and intensity of natural disasters such as tornados, fires, floods and droughts. These impacts can be seen in declining agricultural production, higher food prices and food insecurity, which are most severely felt by the poor.
The fires in the Western Cape over the past decade have been more prevalent and damaging than ever before. The rooibos farmers in the Western Cape have had to adapt to changes in weather patterns. The communities living along the Limpopo and Orange River basins have experienced massive flooding and disruption in their farming. Changes in ocean temperatures and currents have resulted in a southwards shift in some of our fish stocks, including the West Coast rock lobster, leaving the West Coast communities stranded in poverty.
In this regard, our climate change response policy White Paper is nearing completion. It will outline our vision for effective climate action and a gradual transition to a climate-resilient and low-carbon economy and society.
We must use the fact that South Africa is hosting the United Nations climate change conference, UNCCC, in Durban, in November to December this year to strengthen Africa's voice in the solutions to the global climate change crisis and to enhance climate-related economic and job-creating investment in our country and Africa as a whole.
Therefore, we are putting together a climate expo as a platform to showcase ourselves and Africa. We are partnering with civil society, and with provincial and local governments, to ensure that we rally our people behind Team South Africa.
Contrary to the widely held belief that our environment management portfolio hinders development, we wish, once again, to reaffirm that the environment sector is a major contributor to job creation and the fight against poverty.
Every day, as we speak, more than 10 000 people wake up to work in our different parks. Even more people are employed in the various provincial parks and more than 2 000 people work at private game farms across the country. We have also integrated and linked our poverty and job creation Expanded Public Works Programme with our efforts to restore and maintain ecosystems services through programmes, such as Working for Water, and Working on Fire - which I know the Deputy Minister deals with as well.
In the 2011-12 financial year, the Working for Water programme will provide almost five million person days of employment - a substantial increase from the three million person days achieved in the last financial year. Our Working for Wetlands programme, which I know the Deputy Minister will speak about, rehabilitated 427 wetlands and created some 10 000 short-term work opportunities for people from vulnerable and marginalised communities.
We are committed to the sustainable development approach to economic growth, poverty alleviation and job creation. As part of this commitment, we are working diligently towards a comprehensive and balanced approach to the monitoring, evaluation and enforcement of our environmental legislation. For example, we are extremely concerned about the dramatic increase in rhino poaching by bandits and poachers operating with military precision. To respond to this scourge, we have developed a holistic approach to confront the challenge of rhino poaching through the mobilisation of resources from various anticrime units across the country, including the Defence Force, the SA Revenue Service and the SA Police Service.
The rhino poaching situation is but one example of the scale of environmental crimes occurring in our country. In this regard, we have established a biodiversity enforcement unit to co-ordinate and monitor compliance with our biodiversity legislation. We have established partnerships with key stakeholders, institutions and government departments, and the process continues to yield results. We have engaged the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development to fast-track prosecution with regard to environmental crimes, including the allocation of dedicated times to these cases.
We are moving towards an integrated permitting system, with integrated waste and environmental impact assessment permitting processes first in line. We have put in place a new and improved environmental impact assessment and management regime, which takes a strategic approach to development and dispels the myth that the impact assessment and management tools are barriers to development.
We have initiated the implementation of the National Environmental Management: Waste Act, which allows us to address some of the challenges that we have been grappling with for decades, including waste avoidance, minimisation, reuse, recycling, recovery, appropriate licensing, collection and storage requirements, as well as environmentally sound treatment and disposal of problematic waste streams.
In addition, the National Environmental Management: Waste Act allows us to develop a recycling economic sector, with the municipalities expected to be central to this programme. This year we will be setting recycling targets to help us monitor the rate at which we are implementing effective waste management.
The environmental integrity of our country and the need to safeguard our water resources is the responsibility of all of us, and we should discharge this with the commitment and zeal that it deserves.
As I conclude, I would like to thank all of our esteemed members in this House: the chairperson, the select committee and hon members, as well as the entire membership of this august House for the work that they have been doing, which includes work they have been doing with our Deputy Minister here, with such dedication. I also thank our management in the department under the able leadership of our two acting directors-general and the director-general who is still in Hollywood a bit, but he will get there. Thank you very much for helping us to execute this very important task. We dedicate all our time and energy to working through these programmes on the environment. Thank you very much. [Applause.]