Deputy President Paul Mashatile says they are resolving the water crisis that has affected major cities including Johannesburg, Durban and other parts of the country. Picture: Timothy Bernard / Independent Newspapers
Deputy President Paul Mashatile says they are resolving the water crisis that has affected major cities including Johannesburg, Durban and other parts of the country.
The government has set aside R20 billion to be given to municipalities to repair and maintain water infrastructure.
Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Thembi Nkadimeng has also been deployed to some of the areas experiencing water shortages, he said.
Last week he was in Knysna, in the Western Cape, with Deputy Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Parks Tau and Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation David Mahlobo where they managed to resolve the water challenges, he added.
Mashatile said he was also chairing a war room that is attending to water shortages in the country.
Nkadimeng was in Durban on Monday and she was in the Free State on Tuesday where she was attending to similar issues.
Mashatile made the comments on Tuesday in reply to questions in the National Council of Provinces where members of the Chamber said the water crisis was crippling the state and many reservoirs had low levels.
The deputy president said when they were in Knysna last week they realised that some decisions needed to be taken on the spot and do not require officials to sit in meetings.
“The government is currently implementing improvement plans as part of its rapid response intervention to resolve the water crisis.
“This is done through the service delivery war room that the president has set up which I am chairing. We work with Cogta and other departments.
“We go to these areas to be able to work with municipalities on the ground.
“We introduced reforms in the municipal infrastructure grant, this one particularly is to fund the repairs, refurbishment and renewal of infrastructure.
“When we were in Knysna last Thursday we found one of the problems they have there to supply water is pump stations that need to be repaired and new pipes that need to installed.
“The deputy ministers who were with me, Parks Tau and deputy minister David Mahlobo, were able to say on the spot to the municipality you can apply for funding to be able to do this work.
“As we are speaking the pump station has been repaired in Knysna and they are pumping water upstream.
“When we say service delivery war room, we are not talking about people meeting in Pretoria. These are important interventions. We go to the ground.
“We got things fixed and we are going to continue to do so. The Premier (Alan Winde) was there, but he came to protest. He was not far from where I was. The DA was protesting, we were fixing things,” said Mashatile.
He said they will continue to work with municipalities and they will go back to areas that have been affected by lack of water supply to check on progress.
Mashatile said load shedding also caused disruption at the pump stations.
He added that municipalities must use renewable energy sources to prevent the interruption of the supply of water when there is load shedding.
He also said there was criminality where organised criminal groups sabotage reservoirs and water pump stations.
The Mercury