Mlamleli lead team to address water scarcity problems

The MEC is also looking into extending access to quality running water to people living in villages and farms where communal taps are still being used

The deadline for municipalities to submit their water action plans ended this week. This after the Free State government decided to speed up the process of further improving people’s access to drinkable water in various municipalities.

Almost 95.2 percent of people in the province have access to drinking water. This means the remaining 4.8 percent still struggles to get water. The wasting of water through leakages, pipe bursts and increased demand for water due to the mushrooming of informal settlements has put a strain on the provincial government’s efforts to provide water.

The MEC for cooperative governance, Olly Mlamleli has been appointed to lead a technical team that will monitor the process of achieving ensuring that all citizens of the province have access to portable drinking water. The team will include officials from the department of water affairs, water boards, South African Local Government Association (SALGA), and the department of the premier.

“The challenge that exists and informs this is the issue of high increase in demand due to the new informal and formal settlements and ageing infrastructure that needs to be repaired. The shortage and skewedness of the quality and quantity of water within the province and the change in rain patterns as well as loss of water through leaks,” explained the department of water affairs’ regional head, Tseliso Ntili.

These are the reasons that led to the department of water affairs’ introduction of the National Water Resource Strategy (NWRS2) to deal with the management of water in a sustainable manner. The NWRS2 strategy will also take into consideration the economic, social and environmental factors.

The initiative will also be looking into extending access to quality running water to people living in rural areas such as villages and farms where communal taps are still used. For this objective to be achieved, municipalities are required to submit their action plans to the department.

“These action plans are drafted by individual municipalities and must clearly stipulate how they are going to execute their water implementation plans.  For example; if a certain municipality requires a pipeline in order to solve their water supply problem, they must state that.

“The municipality should provide when and how are they going to put up the pipeline. The plan must have a budget, dates of completion and who will be responsible for doing that job,” said Ntili.

Free State municipalities in the “red” were also instructed to adopt the Setsoto Local Municipality model to speed up their process of dealing with the mentioned challenges. This model involves an integrated approach by all service providers with distinguished capabilities that can contribute to alleviate water challenges faster with clear visible and tangible results.

The model was named after the Setsoto Local Municipality, because it worked successfully in that municipality. As a result, it is encouraged to be used by those municipalities who are in dire need of immediate assistance and support.

In the meantime, the situation on the ground continues to be dire, especially at Botshabelo West’s formal settlement, where communities have to rely on daily truck deliveries of water from the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality as their only source of clean potable water. One of the residents, Matseko Modupi, is exasperated about the situation.

“I cannot wait for the day when we finally get water from a tap. This will make our lives a lot easier because sometimes we wait for the whole day for this truck. If you need more water, sometimes you have to pay for it. For example you need to pay as much as R250 to fill up a 4 000 litre tank.”