Chairperson, hon Minister, members and, particularly, the Deputy Minister and my colleague, Gareth Morgan, I accept your challenge to "adopt a river". We will do so in our constituencies and we will report back to you on our progress. [Applause.]
The Minister was expected to release the long-overdue Green Drop report on the state of waste water treatment in South Africa on Monday next week. She will now do so in a fortnight's time. South Africa has 852 municipal waste water treatment plants. More than R3,5 billion is spent annually on the operation of these works. Despite this, the Green Drop report will note that the municipal waste water services business is generally considered to be far from acceptable.
Only 53% of our waste water works were actually assessed. Forty seven per cent were not assessed for the following reasons. Firstly, municipalities are not adhering to the call to be assessed. Secondly, municipal officials are not sufficiently confident in their levels of competence to be subjected to assessments. Thirdly, municipalities are not managing waste water services according to expected requirements and, therefore, are not in possession of the management information required for Green Drop assessments.
These are not reasons for not assessing. These are reasons for a score of zero and for urgent intervention.
So, while the Minister will be announcing shortly that 32, or 7,4%, of works actually achieved Green Drop status, she should be announcing that only 3,8% of works comply fully with the requirements. The Minister will also be announcing that 45% of the works assessed scored better than 50%. In fact, 76% of the works scored less than 50%, and 47% of the works, in effect, scored zero.
In 2008-09, the department compiled reports on the state of works in each province, providing the base information for the Green Drop report. Limpopo, with not one Green Drop award, provides a disturbing reflection of the situation throughout the country, with the very obvious exception of the Western Cape. I visited Limpopo last week and saw and heard first hand of the problems of raw sewage entering the rivers of the Kruger National Park from leaking infrastructure in Phalaborwa and of 60% of raw sewage flow in Louis Trichardt simply being diverted into a river because the plant in question cannot cope with the load.
Forty of the works assessed by your department ... [Interjections.]