As South Africa faces a deepening water crisis, President Cyril Ramaphosa has refuted claims that he failed to read the room on the water situation, saying the government will intervene and hold municipalities to account, and that the media should focus on “things that work well”.
The current water crisis 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
Speaking at the annual Presidential Golf Challenge (PGC) at the Atlantic Beach Golf Estate in Melkbosstrand on Friday, a day after his State of the Nation Address (Sona), Ramaphosa said he understands the current water crisis.
“Well, it’s not, not reading the room, the situation properly. We have a constitutional situation that devolves the reticulation of water to our local government. Now, we allocate money to our local government, and they are supposed to maintain [it], they are supposed to ensure that there’s reticulation. Ramaphosa said.
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Intervention
Ramaphosa said he intervened in the Hammanskraal water issue.
“You might recall that I went to Hammanskraal, where the waterworks was not well looked after. And I called on the Tshwane municipality to do their work. When they didn’t, we intervened and made sure that water is delivered to the people in Hamamanskraal. That process continues.
“Now, what I said yesterday, is that we have now realised that, rather than have our people without water and be punished, by the lack of activity or delivery by municipalities, we are now going to intervene, and we will use a section in the Water Act, to intervene, and also, during the process of looking at the white paper, local government,” Ramaphosa said.
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Holding municipalities to account
Ramaphosa said municipalities will be held to account.
“We will seek to ensure that those municipalities that don’t do their work, we should have the amendment that allows government to intervene directly and to deploy the resources.
“So our democracy is young. It’s 30 years, and after 30 years, we are beginning to realise that certain things work well and other things don’t work so well, and those things that don’t work so well are correcting,” Ramaphosa said.
‘Focus on things that work well’
Ramaphosa claimed the media likes to focus on “things that don’t work well”.
“I know what you do. You like focusing on those things that don’t work well, and you forget those things that work well, and I do want you to also focus on the things that work well.
Yesterday, somebody said, No, the president delivered a good speech, but the tie he was wearing. Really, what has the tie got to do with it? They must listen to the speech. They mustn’t look at how handsome I am. I know I’m handsome, but don’t focus on that,” Ramaphosa said.
National disaster
Meanwhile, 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 SAHRC said it is convinced that the situation regarding water challenges in the country has reached “crisis proportions.”
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