Hon Chairperson, hon Minister, hon Deputy Minister, hon members, ladies and gentlemen, since the establishment of democracy in South Africa, one of the greatest challenges has been to provide basic services and related infrastructure to the majority of South Africans. In 1994, the ANC-led government inherited a mixed, but rapidly deteriorating, infrastructure.
There was recognition by many that the economic infrastructure, with transport and electricity mainly in the urban areas, was fairly well developed. But the greater population, especially in the former homelands, did not have access to social and domestic infrastructure. In 1994, only 20% of rural dwellers had access to electricity, 35% to clean water, and 5% to adequate sanitation.
The ANC-led government began the difficult task in 1994 of working to address the apartheid imbalances in relation to a decent life for all. This meant that the majority of the citizens required access to electricity, water and sanitation. The executive and policy statements have strongly emphasised the nexus between infrastructure development and service delivery, mainly to the poor. The 2009, 2010 and 2011 state of the nation addresses have continually emphasised this. In relation to this priority, the necessary budget to ensure the realisation of service delivery has been allocated.
Furthermore, the creation of systematic institutional structures and, in this case, the infrastructure development cluster, focusing specifically on infrastructure development within a developmental agenda for the needs of South Africa, is testimony to the seriousness of government to focus not only on macroeconomic growth, but also to ensure the provision of jobs and good quality water service delivery to all its citizens.
One of the key premises of the work of the infrastructure development cluster is to devise corrective measures and interventions to enable government to ensure the maximum impact of infrastructure investment in economic growth and service delivery.
The infrastructure development cluster has a responsibility to focus on the following identified key challenges: an insufficient and inadequate infrastructure network; an uncompetitive environment and weak regulation; lack of infrastructure management and refurbishment; and operational inefficiencies.
The philosophy guiding the work of the infrastructure cluster can be broadly categorised in the following ways: understanding South Africa's developmental agenda which recognises the importance of infrastructure in increasing equality and meeting social and economic needs; recognising that the economic role and significance of infrastructure should not be accorded precedence over the other dimensions of sustainable development: the social, the cultural and the environmental aspects; investing in infrastructure to eliminate service backlogs in underserviced areas, especially the black townships and the rural areas in order to meet people's basic needs; recognising that basic infrastructure can also reduce poverty and contribute to job creation; and bearing in mind that access to water is a human rights issue provided for in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa.
To this end, the government is biased towards the poor and most vulnerable people who have, in the past, been left to fend for themselves with minimal or no support from the apartheid government. As a legacy of apartheid, large dumping areas were created for the unemployed reservoir of people to be drawn on to feed an apartheid-structured labour market. In most instances, the very same people worked exceptionally hard to create and develop infrastructure for the more affluent in the urban areas. This begs the question of who benefited.
How, then, is the Department of Water Affairs translating the broad framework which guides the work of the infrastructure development cluster? The Department of Water Affairs has begun the enormous task of engaging in the development of creating sustainable water infrastructure to ensure effective service delivery.
The ANC-led government has made available resources to address this in terms of spending R30 million over the next five to eight years on continuing construction and on establishing a mega-water infrastructure project. This will increase the capacity of existing water resource infrastructure. These resources will also be used to increase water infrastructure, water coverage and maintenance. In fact, the need to roll out basic services and water supply in support of human settlement development, in line with the government's commitment of universal access to water by 2014, influenced the additional allocation to the Department of Water Affairs.
Currently, in relation to water services and infrastructure, the Department of Water Affairs has identified seven new augmentation water resource infrastructure projects to support the domestic, industrial, agricultural and energy sectors. In relation to Budget Vote No 38, the department has two clear priority programmes, that of water infrastructure management and regional implementation and support.
The expenditure to undertake the above objectives increased from R1,2 billion in 2007-08, to R2,2 billion in 2010-11, at an average annual rate of 23,6%. The following objectives and measures guide the work of this programme: ensure the availability of water supply for domestic use through the development of infrastructure by providing technical support to the municipalities to access potable water through the use of bulk infrastructure schemes by 2013-14; improve access to water for rural development and productive use; improve water use efficiency by implementing water conservation and demand management initiatives; and ensure the provision of institutional support to local government.
The expenditure to undertake the above objectives for regional implementation and support entails transfers to provinces and municipalities. The expenditure grew from R2,5 billion in 2007-08 to R4,4 billion in 2010-11.
The unequal distribution of water from dam sources to surrounding communities is a problem for the department. This serious indictment of the previous regime has resulted in the department creating a strategy to ensure access to water for the surrounding communities for basic use from dams and in order to ensure that the basic constitutional rights of these communities are fulfilled.
While the department acknowledges that a number of challenging and changing factors impact on balancing the needs for economic growth with the provision of water for use by citizens, it has begun the process of finding new and better initiatives of managing water and innovative approaches to better respond to the needs ...