Cholera epidemic highlights need for safe water
While the cholera epidemic in KwaZulu-Natal has highlighted the desperate need for communities to have access to clean water, poor households are only likely to taste President Thabo Mbeki’s promise of 6 000 litres of free water per month by mid next year.
Water Affairs and Forestry Director-General Mike Muller said yesterday (wed) that, as local authorities would implement the free water scheme, delivery was only likely to start in July 2001 when new local budgets were introduced.
The promise of “a free basic amount of water, electricity and other municipal services” is a cornerstone of the ANC’s local election manifesto.
However, Muller stressed that the money transferred to local government for water supply was “already more than enough to meet the water basic needs of poor communities”.
The challenge was to ensure that the money allocated to municipalities for water “was getting where it should”, he said.
The ANC’s manifesto promises to ensure that local government “has the powers and resources to serve [citizens] adequately, in part by reviewing and strengthening the system of subsidies to local government”.
Water Affairs officials have been working since last year to develop an approach to water delivery for the poor, according to Muller.
“We are finalising our recommendations and hope these will go to Cabinet before the end of November,” he said.
The SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) this week described the cholera epidemic as “the most horrific expression of the government’s failure to deliver basic lifeline services to poor communities”.
Cholera is a water-borne disease and communities at risk are those “who do not have access to piped water and adequate sanitation”, according to the Department of Health’s Dr Hans van Heerden.
“[Water Affairs] Minister Ronnie Kasrils admits that people have become infected because they did not have enough money to pay the government’s R51 registration fee for access to a tap. “Poverty forced them to choose a contaminated river,” said Samwu.
The union added that government’s 6000 litres offer “must be delivered without citizens having to pay registration fees or be subjected to humiliating means tests”.
Muller agreed it was important that municipalities were able to deliver the free water “without the need for a huge and costly administration to oversee it”.
The Water Affairs department believes it is possible to target poor communities without forcing households to undergo means tests to prove their poverty.
Cities could, for example, make the first 6 000 litres of water free for everyone, with water getting progressively more expensive if consumers used more. In this way, money collected from those who consume more water could be used to cross-subsidise those who did not use much.
In rural areas, district councils could finance standpipes where poor households get their water from. Most poor people would not physically be able to fetch more than 6 000 litres a month.
However, Samwu is sceptical of government’s ability to sustain its promise of free water.
“Government has made much of its expansion of water service since 1994. However, more than half of the people who have gained access have subsequently lost it-either through maintenance problems or being cutoff due to non-payment,” said Samwu.
But Muller said Samwu was basing its figures on a study of problem schemes, rather than an appraisal of all schemes.
“We believe there are only problems in five to ten percent of the schemes,” said Muller. ‘ Health-e News Service.
Author
Kerry Cullinan is the Managing Editor at Health-e News Service. Follow her on Twitter @kerrycullinan11
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Cholera epidemic highlights need for safe water
by Kerry Cullinan, Health-e News
October 24, 2000