The government plans to step in where councils have failed to provide safe drinking water said Water Affairs and Forestry Minister Lindiwe Hendricks during her budget vote debate in Parliament on 23 May 2008.
The decision was sparked by recent events including the deaths of babies who allegedly drank contaminated tap water in the Eastern Cape and the failure of six per cent of (mainly rural) local authorities to comply with regulations for providing quality water. In April 2008, the country was rocked by reports that close to 90 babies had died in the Ukhahlamba District Municipality after they had consumed dirty water.
Mike Waters, spokesman on health matters for the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), claims that 142 babies in the Eastern Cape Province have died as a result of drinking contaminated water. Provincial health authorities have only acknowledged 78 deaths.
An investigation into the infant deaths, acknowledges “systematic failures affecting water quality”, according to IPS. More than 83 percent of the affected families did not have toilets in their homes, so they had to use outside pit latrines that are prone to allowing leakage of untreated water into the ground water system, it was reported.
The diarrhoea outbreak in the Eastern Cape echoes developments elsewhere in South Africa that have seen technical staff abandon careers in local government, prompting a critical skills shortage in the management of water supplies that has led in turn to serious illnesses and even death. The skills shortage in the water sector, particularly in local government and in DWAF, is also highlighted in DWAF’s recent discussion document on the Strategic Framework on Water for Sustainable Growth and Development.
Sources: Siyabonga Mkhwanazi, Cape Argus (Cape Town), 24 May 2008 ; Steven Lang, IPS, 26 May 2008
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