SALGA says govt ministers out of touch with realities of communities who can't pay for water

CAPE TOWN - The South African Local Government Association (SALGA) has hit back at government ministers it said were out of touch with the realities faced by communities who can’t pay for water, as at least two water boards teeter on the brink of financial collapse.

The organisation on Tuesday told Parliament’s water and sanitation committee that punishing municipalities by withholding their equitable share allocation was not a good solution to deal with the liquidity issues faced by the Vaal Central and Magalies water boards. 

Informing Parliament of the move on Tuesday, the department said it was a last resort to save the troubled water boards which are owed more than R23 billion by municipalities.

SALGA said the reality was that like electricity, water had also become unaffordable, especially in economically depressed communities where people were jobless.

SALGA's water chairperson and Kenneth Kaunda Mayor, Nikiwe Num, said all the blame could not be placed on municipalities and water boards should be interrogated too.

"If all of us had done due diligence to understand the ability [of water boards] to run their affairs, the ability to be sustainable so that we can begin to say, let's flip the coin."

SALGA's water specialist, Lubabalo Luyaba, said it was problematic that there was no water regulator to determine affordability for the masses.

"That key word of affordability. How often have we heard it today, and to what extent is it actually being considered? Or we are just vilifying local government as unwilling to do what is right."

Minister Pemmy Majodina said she was disappointed by SALGA's posture. 

She said that the association should have been playing its part in getting municipalities to pay for bulk water before it reached the point of crisis.