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.
Forty per cent of the works assessed by your department in Limpopo, or 65%, are considered high risk. Twenty-two works scored at the lowest possible acceptable level.
Fourteen of the 62 works have no licence to operate. In 43 cases, the existence of a licence could not be determined. Thus, 91% of the works are operating outside of the law and outside of any formal control.
Only one of the works in Limpopo has complied with standards for discharge of final effluent into rivers. Not one of the works has the required number of qualified staff employed.
The Green Drop report considers 160 works countrywide as "high risk". The 403 works not assessed, for highly spurious reasons, should equally be considered high risk, giving us a total of 563, or 66%, high-risk operations. Your department has as an objective for this year "reducing pollution in water resources throughout South Africa by ensuring that all waste water treatment plants comply with effluent standards by March 2011". Your optimism must now be matched by action.
The 2005 State of the Environment Report states that "there should be sufficient water of suitable quality to meet South Africa's expectations for the near future. This is provided the resources are carefully managed". Careful management, however, is by no means the order of the day.
According to a reply to a 2009 DA question, 40% of water service authorities in South Africa had no water service development plans in place. Only the Western Cape complied with the legal requirement to conduct an annual audit on water services.
Alarm bells are ringing. Regrettably, the competence to respond to these alarm bells simply does not exist.
The Green Drop report notes, as one of the reasons for poor performance, that skills shortages exist at all levels, from managerial to junior operational.
At a conference I attended recently in Port Elizabeth, entitled Water Sector Capacity and Skills Development, one of your officials presented a study performed in 1998, 12 years ago, which found there to be a lack of competence in the water sector. A skills task team was established in 2008, 10 years later. To date, according to the conference presenter, nothing has happened. This skills task team forms part of the Water Sector Leadership Group, which was formed in 1998 and which you, as Minister, head.
Your department's 2004 National Water Resource Strategy states:
It is imperative to ensure that sufficient capacity is created in the water sector. The department is playing a prominent role in this initiative. The strategy has the objective of ensuring that all role players in the South African water sector will have ensured that the necessary capacity exists in all relevant institutions.
Contrast this, Minister, with your response to a 2009 DA question on the shortage of engineers in the water sector, when you replied:
My department has no information on the water sector; however, for my department, the table below indicates the extent of shortage within.
For mechanical engineers, 11 posts are filled and 16 posts are vacant. For civil engineers, 95 posts are filled and 210 posts are vacant.
In February 2010 we asked whether your department determines the skills and capacity requirements in the water sector. The answer was a simple no.
Minister, you head the Water Sector Leadership Group. You have a skills task team in place. However, where is the evidence of any forward momentum being generated by your department?
Your department's strategic plan identifies, as an output this year, "conduct skills gap analysis for the water sector". A report is to be produced by the end of 2011. You will then begin to implement interventions. The first of these promises was made in 1998. Your department has let South Africa down, and seriously so.
Ground and surface water quality is deteriorating fast. People have died after drinking polluted water. Animals in the Kruger National Park and ecosystems across the country are under threat. Tourism is compromised by the eutrophication of rivers and dams. Water treatment costs are escalating due to poor quality raw water. Farmers are unable to irrigate with polluted river water. The availability of water to sustain economic development and human and environmental health is diminishing. Opportunities are being seriously undermined.
You have advertised for nominations of persons to serve on your Advisory Council. Only people with the finest skills, people who are truly fit for purpose, should serve on this committee. With a few exceptions, your internal advisors are letting you down.
Give South Africa the vital, critical and urgent leadership required to address the current shocking level of mismanagement of our water resources and the development and retention of the skills we so desperately need. Thank you. [Applause.]