The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has called for the ongoing water crisis in Gauteng and other parts of South Africa to be declared a national disaster.
The country is currently facing a deepening water crisis that could result in economic collapse and social instability.
Communities across the country face water shortages and outages lasting more than 25 days, with infrastructure deterioration reaching critical levels and sewage contaminating water sources.
Water crisis
SAHRC spokesperson Wisani Baloyi said they are concerned by the ongoing water challenges engulfing the country.
“The SAHRC is convinced that the situation regarding water challenges in the country has reached crisis proportions.”
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National disaster
Baloyi said data emerging from the South African Water Justice Tracker-a project partnership between the SAHRC and the University of the Witwatersrand that tracks drivers and causes of failure by water services authorities in providing households with clean and sufficient water-corroborates that the water crisis is not a localised phenomenon but is widespread, affecting various parts of the country.
“The Water Justice Tracker reveals ageing infrastructure, inadequate funding model, skills deficit, and poor intergovernmental coordination as some of the key systemic and structural drivers contributing to the dysfunctionality of water services authorities.
“Considering the dire nature of the water crisis in the country, the SAHRC recommends that the government declare the water crisis engulfing the country a national disaster in accordance with the Disaster Management Act 57 of 2002,” Baloyi said.
He said the SAHRC will issue a letter to the head of the National Disaster Management Centre containing a recommendation for a national disaster declaration regarding the water crisis.
Corruption
However, Baloyi warned that declaring a national state of disaster over the ongoing water crisis should not become a “breeding ground for corruption, malfeasance and embezzlement of funds”.
“Sufficient oversight measures to ensure fiscal prudence should be instilled.
“The SAHRC calls on government to continue to institute proactive measures, such as ensuring preventative infrastructure maintenance; critical water infrastructure rehabilitation; expediting the finalisation of bulk water projects; and instituting community behavioural change campaigns on water preservation,” Baloyi said.
With the water crisis reaching critical levels, water activists and experts have called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to urgently address the country’s deepening water crisis in his State of the Nation Address (Sona) on Thursday. Â
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