Admission takes guts, Minister Majodina
· Citizen
We never thought we’d see the day when we agreed with an ANC minister… mainly because the former solo ruling party has a penchant for avoiding reality and, particularly, what needs to be done to fix our country.
Yet, reading Water and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina’s thoughts today on our water crisis, she is speaking a lot of sense.
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She acknowledges, without excuse or hiding behind the hackneyed reference to “challenges”, that “the reality we confront is stark”.
Nearly half of SA’s water supply systems are failing to meet required standards. About 64% of wastewater treatment works are in critical condition. Almost half of our treated water is lost before it reaches users.
“In a water-scarce country, this is not just inefficiency. It is systemic failure.”
That failure, she goes on “is not only about ageing infrastructure or technical gaps. At its core, it is a governance crisis. Infrastructure does not maintain itself. Systems do not operate without skilled people. Revenues do not collect themselves. Where there is weak management, poor planning and limited accountability, even well-funded systems will fail.”
She urges that qualified people be hired, that people pay their dues and that misuse of water money be stopped.
More power to you, minister.