Chairperson, hon members, the department indicates that substantial progress has been made in redressing the backlog in the provision of water and sanitation services. We would like to ask whether this includes rural areas.
This year the department is placing emphasis on regulating the quality of water. This is to meet a constitutional obligation and also because it is an imperative for good health. The introduction of the Drinking Water Assessment Programme by the department is a development that we welcome.
By the end of last year, 23 water supply systems had been awarded Blue Drop status certificates. This is impressive. The question which arises is whether many other water systems in the country have yet to comply with these requirements.
The Congress of the People is seriously concerned about maintaining water quality, because this has a direct impact on health. In this regard Parliament needs to know how many municipalities in the country were issued with the directives to improve and make safe the quality of water that was being supplied. After the directives were issued, did the department follow up with the strict monitoring of these municipalities in question? Furthermore, was any assistance provided to those towns that needed to improve their water standards to solve the problem?
In developing countries the greatest mortality among infants and young children arises from preventable water-borne diseases. While the use of rotavirus vaccines by the Department of Health will be a great help, diarrhoea has become a significant cause of death for infants and for people aged between 45 and 65 in South Africa.
In the most recent outbreak, of the 900 diarrhoea cases in the Western Cape who were admitted to hospital, a large number were from Delft, Mfuleni and Ikwezi. This shows that a safe water supply in the townships is still a problem, as it was in the apartheid era, and I wish to question whether departmental inspectors have been checking why this is happening.
Since 1999, this department has been transferring responsibility for rural water and sanitation provision to municipalities. In many areas, however, municipal implementation capacity is very weak and many municipalities do not have the resources for infrastructure development. Is the department pushing its own responsibility to somewhere else and closing its eyes to the problem? What is the situation in this regard?
From our own oversight work it is clear that in many parts of the country infrastructure is either collapsing or is not adequate for the growth that has taken place. Mthatha is a classic example of this.
As water is essential for life, we are very anxious for Parliament to be informed about what monitoring and evaluation system for the water sector as a whole has been in place and what has been the outcome of such monitoring. These results are important for the legislature to have in order to influence policy development. A detailed report of how the new water law was being implemented, or how water resources management services were balancing supply and demand, is crucial.
In debating water, we believe that reports should have been furnished on whether the catchments management agencies are now fully functional. It will be interesting to find out whether any partnerships have been formed. Catchments management is pivotal to South Africa's continued water supply.
The Congress of the People also wants to enquire as to whether the department had formulated an agenda for further strategy generation over the medium to long term. This needs to happen as part of the Water Resource Strategy and management of policy analysis. South Africa is a water- stressed country and a situation must never arise here which sees the country running out of water, as happened with electricity.
This year, some parts of our country received more rainfall than usual, while other parts did not. The situation is made worse by high levels of evaporation. Meanwhile, nearly half of the total annual surface run-off is already used, while another quarter is lost due to evaporation. As water is such a scarce resource, the question arises whether government has succeeded in altering water consumption patterns in any significant way. Within a decade we could be experiencing a major water crisis.
Another area of great concern comes from high levels of pollution of surface and ground water. Farmers are experiencing crop losses on account of pollution and the health of people and animals is being affected. The impact of pollution as a result of mining is considerable and its implications are serious. The Congress of the People believes that addressing the pollution of surface, underground and marine waters must be accorded very high priority.
In addition, we ask the Minister to explain how much of our waste water is being treated and then returned for use in the agricultural sector. A country that has such water deficits as we do must have a system in place to recycle all the waste water we can.
On the question of eutrophication, I wish to ask the Minister whether the 80 or so impoundments that we have in the country are adequate to monitor the quality of our fresh water and whether these are consistently monitored. It is a known fact that our fresh water supplies are seriously polluted and that the department has not been able to do much about that in the past. It will be important to know if there is any improvement in the situation.
It is astonishing that detergent phosphorus is allowed to drain into our rivers, leading to eutrophication. How is this growing problem going to be solved? Daily, industrial ... Thank you. [Time expired.] [Applause.]