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) • SALGA’s 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; O&M; 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 settlementsare often blurred.

14. Urban/Rural Divide (cont) • SALGA’s 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.