While South Africa is one of just a few countries in the world to enshrine the basic right to access to sufficient water in its constitution, the government has done far too little to ensure that this right is progressively realised.
It is a vital right because water is essential for life.
The ANC government has, over three decades, created the illusion that many communities once denied access to piped water during apartheid, now have taps in their homes.
The problem lies in the entrenched mismanagement and incapacity in local government which means that those taps remain mostly dry.
The infrastructure meant to ensure that clean water is supplied to homes, schools and communities is decrepit.
Water treatment plants don’t work, pumps are stolen or dysfunctional, and pipe infrastructure is rotten.
Mashatile will not find hope or gratitude but rather anger, resentment, poverty, disease and desperation
While apartheid denied many access to basic services, the one thing the then government did manage was to build fairly functional water and waste water systems.
The water boards were functional even though their services were, to some extent, provided to a privileged few.
The people gave the ANC the mandate to improve and expand on what was there.
In 2004, then president Thabo Mbeki promised “all households will have running water within five years”.
Instead, a sort of gutter democracy set in where — instead of expanding services to all — service delivery collapsed across the board in both historically privileged and disadvantaged areas.
As usual, it is the poor that suffer. The lucky few manage to put in rainwater tanks and mini water treatment and filtration systems.
The poor revert to the age-old habit of collecting water from faraway dirty streams and rivers that are now clogged with human and animal waste.
This publication has highlighted just how bad it gets for the elderly who live in rural areas such as Qunu and Ngolo.
Elderly people say they cannot remember when last water even dripped out of the village taps.
They now spend their meagre pensions on water just so that they can survive. Deputy President Paul Mashatile will lead a delegation to the OR Tambo district to assess service delivery in these villages.
There is not much to assess. If he ever reads this publication, he would know that these ANC municipalities are poorly led and failing their communities.
He will not find hope or gratitude but rather anger, resentment, poverty, disease and desperation. And cynicism.
As Eastern Cape Chamber of Business president Vuyisile Ntlabathi said: “He [Mashatile] will come, make a lot of promises, like all others, but leave us with nothing.”
One hopes he proves these predictions wrong but no-one is holding their breath.
Daily Dispatch
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.