Water and Sanitation Delivery

1
Water and Sanitation Delivery
Select Committee on Land and Environmental
Affairs3 August 2004
2

Introduction

• SALGA welcomes targets set by President Mbeki
  for
• All households to have access to clean and safe
  water by 2009
• More than 300 000 households to be supplied with
  basic sanitation during 2004/05
• All schools to have access to water and
  sanitation by the end of 2004/05
• Review within 6 months of local government
  equitable share allocation as well as formula and
  local government resources and
• Assistance to local government in ensuring that
  ward committees function properly.

3

• Introduction (Cont)
• SALGAs objective is to assist municipalities in
  delivering services in an equitable, affordable
  and sustainable manner.
• SALGA recognises that not all our people are
  benefiting from government policies as a result
  of the delivery track record of some
  municipalities.
• We therefore welcome the focus on the functioning
  and resources of local government.
• SALGA recognises that many municipalities need to
  improve the efficiency of their water and
  sanitation delivery.

4
Efforts to improve water and sanitation delivery

• In order to ensure that municipalities meet the
  Presidential targets and to improve the delivery
  of basic water and sanitation services, SALGA
  initiated at the beginning of July an audit of
  municipal plans on their expected delivery of
  services in the 2004/05 financial year.
• SALGA expects the data gathering to be completed
  by the end of August 2004.

5
Efforts to improve water and sanitation delivery
cont

• The audit is also assessing the number of
  households served with water, sanitation,
  electricity and housing since 1994.
• Part of the exercise is also to test the
  municipalities ability to deliver against the
  targets as set in the Strategic Framework for
  Water Services of which workshops were held in
  March and June 2004.

6
Efforts to improve water and sanitation delivery
(cont)

• The assessment will also reveal the following
• The number of household served in the 2003/2004
  financial year in water, sanitation, electricity
  and housing
• The percentage of the population with access to
  the services outlined above
• The backlog of delivery of these services
• How many households will receive delivery of
  these services in the 2004/2005 financial year
• Free Basic Water policy implementation by
  municipalities by 2005 and
• Free Basic Sanitation policy implementation by
  2010.

7
Entering the second decade of freedom and
democracy

• Intensive government focus on eradication of
  poverty.
• Delivery of basic water and sanitation services
  priority in poverty eradication.
• Constitutional responsibility for delivery water
  and sanitation services rests with
  municipalities.
• While provision of water remains a priority in
  the war against poverty, eradicating the enormous
  sanitation backlog has become a key priority.
• MIG gives municipalities consolidated funding for
  the provision of these services and the
  eradication of poverty.

8
Entering the second decade of freedom and
democracy (cont)

• The provision of basic services and meeting
  Millennium and presidential targets dependent on
  effective intergovernmental cooperation.
• The first 10 years of democracy has seen the
  adoption of policies for delivery of basic
  services by national government.
• The challenges of implementing these policies
  rests with local government.
• Direct support and access to technical expertise
  from national and provincial government to local
  government is needed to ensure successful
  implementation.
• Practical support is needed around planning
  services and projects managing and monitoring
  implementation OM and trouble-shooting.

9
Entering the second decade of freedom and
democracy (cont)

• The roles of national and provincial government
  in relation to delivery of basic services should
  be clarified.
• National government should develop policy and
  monitor implementation while capacity should be
  built at provincial government level to provide
  implementation support and to coordinate support
  activities.
• Provincial support strategies should be developed
  with local government and relevant departments.
  SALGA insists on meaningful consultation.
• Audit of municipal capacity is urgently needed to
  identify skills needed for implementation of
  basic services policies.
• Skills development must be practical and applied.

10
Sanitation

• Municipalities urgently need practical guidelines
  on
• Service delivery approaches, appropriate
  technologies and best practice for different
  settlement areas, including dense settlements,
  informal settlements and settlements on private
  land (farms).
• Guidelines and conditions for using MIG,
  Equitable Share and capacity Building Grants. A
  key issue is clarification of when water-borne
  sanitation is regarded as a basic level of
  service and its implications for MIG and
  Equitable Share funding.

11
Sanitation Cont

• SALGA wishes to raise 3 further issues
• The appropriate level of sanitation delivery to
  peri-urban and urban households
• The danger of a landscape littered with filled
  and unusable VIPs and
• School sanitation

12
Sanitation (cont)

• Issues needing clarification
• Free Basic Sanitation
• Access to basic sanitation by farm dwellers
• Access to basic sanitation by multiple dwellers
• DWAF has urged SALGA that planning must make
  choices about how to use the funds that are
  available and not as a process to draw up a wish
  list.
• However, there needs to be an acknowledgement
  that one-size-fits-all is inappropriate.
• Sanitation in dense urban settlements is complex
  and dry sanitation options are not necessarily
  acceptable to the residents or their
  representatives.

13
Urban/Rural Divide

• Urgent need for the national sanitation policy to
  distinguish between appropriate sanitation
  technologies for high and low density
  settlements.
• This has implications for how a FBS service is
  defined and how the cost to a municipality of
  providing a basic level of service is defined.
• South Africa can be broadly divided between urban
  and rural areas.
• But, the realities on the ground are more complex
  and distinctions between urban, peri-urban and
  rural settlements are often blurred.

14
Urban/Rural Divide (cont)

• SALGAs position is that it is more useful to
  distinguish between high density and low density
  settlements and their spatial position in
  relation to administrative and economic centres.
• In combination, these factors have important
  implications for the type of toilet technologies
  that are suitable, affordable and sustainable.

15
Urban/Rural Divide (cont)

• The most dense area of the centre of an urban
  settlement will almost always necessitate the
  provision of full water-borne sanitation because
• This type of sanitation was provided prior to
  1994
• There will be a demand for this from consumers
  living there and
• On-site sanitation will not be necessarily
  technically appropriate.

16
Urban/Rural Divide (cont)

• In rural areas it is seldom feasible to provide
  anything other than on-site sanitation such as a
  VIP because
• the cost of reticulated systems are high and
• consumers can typically not afford water-borne
  sanitation.
• The most complex sanitation challenges lie in the
  area between urban centres and rural settlements.
• Here settlements are often dense, difficult to
  service and lack household water connections.

17
Urban/Rural Divide (Cont)

• Municipalities are exploring ways of offering
  consumers more affordable services options,
  including
• Waste treatment package plants.
• Low flush toilets linked to digester systems.
• Different service levels in different areas.

18
The Danger of Filled and Unusable VIPs

• Neither DWAF, nor C-MIP grants fund zinc or steel
  top-structures.
• Therefore most toilets being built in rural areas
  will not be movable.
• Several issues arising from present situation
• What happens when a VIP is full?
• Who pays for desludging where this is feasible,
  and how should this cost be recovered?
• What happens where pit desludging is not
  feasible, or where the pit might collapse if it
  is desludged?
• Does the municipality have responsibility for
  replacing a toilet once the pit is full, and if
  not, how should the municipality plan ahead to
  ensure householders have an ongoing sanitation
  service?

19
The Danger of Filled and Unusable VIPs (Cont)

• There are four ways of dealing with filled and
  unusable VIPs
• Seal the full pit and abandon the old toilet,
  then dig a new pit and build a new toilet.
• Seal the full pit, dig a new pit and relocate the
  old top structure over the new pit.
• Empty the pit regularly.
• Empty the pit once every 5 to 10 years through
  manual or mechanical desludging.
• A long-term perspective is needed if we are to
  avoid a landscape littered with derelict unusable
  toilets.

20
School Sanitation

• The current situation is that about 3200 rural
  schools have no toilets at all.
• The majority of rural schools has too few
  toilets, or not enough that is usable and safe.
• Sanitation for schools is the responsibility of
  the provincial Departments of Education.
• As a result of the extent of schools
  infrastructure backlog DoE does not presently
  prioritise water and sanitation ahead of any
  other infrastructural needs.

21
School Sanitation (cont)

• A growing number of municipalities are interested
  to access external funds to tackle school
  sanitation in the context of a broader community
  sanitation programme.
• At issue is how these funds should be sourced.
• Should municipalities act as implementing agents
  for DoE by agreement where they are willing to do
  so?
• Should the MIG make provision for school water
  and sanitation infrastructure where a
  municipality is willing to take this on?

22
Eradication of the Bucket System

• SALGA applauds the Minister of Water Affairs and
  Forestry for her announcement during her Budget
  Vote speech on 17 June 2004 that the bucket
  system will be eradicated by March 2006.
• SALGA also applauds the Minister for her policy
  decision to replace the bucket system with full
  water-borne sanitation.
• Given this decision, it appears that insufficient
  funding has been allocated during the 2004/2005
  financial year.
• It is estimated that R3,275-million is needed to
  eradicate the bucket system by March 2006.

23

• Free Basic Water
• There has been progress in 76 of municipalities
  with available water infrastructure which is
  providing FBW to 26 704 348 people.
• Key challenges in providing FBW
• Development and implementation of indigent
  policies
• Delivery of FBW to poor and unserved households
• Large scale meter installation

24
Free Basic WaterCont

• Billing systems, debt collection and municipal
  arrears
• Availability of quantitative data to assess the
  impact of service delivery
• Consistency in data collection and
• Unavailability of up-to-date dis-aggregate data
  at municipal level.