SA water quality has deteriorated and could pose a health risk – DWS:
South Africa’s drinking water quality has deteriorated, as has the condition of sampled water treatment works, the department of water and sanitation (DWS) said on Tuesday, when releasing its Green, Blue and No Drop Watch Reports.
The department issued non-compliance notices to 90 municipalities following the release of the 2022 Green Drop report, ordering them to address their water challenges.
“The Green Drop Watch Report indicates that 50% of municipalities, whose waste water treatment systems were found to be in a critical state in the 2022 Green Drop Report, have failed to develop and implement plans to improve them,” said DWS director-general, Sean Phillips.
The Green Drop Watch report and the Blue Drop Watch report are based on the 2022 Green Drop Report and the Blue Drop Assessment, while the No Drop Watch Report is a new release.
Phillips said that in 2013, when the last Green Drop assessment was done, “48 out of 824 municipal wastewater systems were in critical condition, indicating a decline between 2013 and 2022”.
The department described the report as “a regulatory tool and incentive-based programme to improve municipal drinking water quality, wastewater management as well as water conservation and demand management”.
Phillips said that according to the 2015 report, only 10% of municipalities had bad or poor microbiological water quality, as opposed to 50% in this sample, an indication that water quality was deteriorating.
Drinking water from some municipal water treatment systems did not meet the national standard, he said, which could pose a serious health risk.
Regarding wastewater treatment, “diagnostic analysis confirmed that the national Cumulative Risk Ratio for treatment plants regressed from 65.4% in medium-risk positions (in 2021), to 70.1% of plants in high-risk positions (in 2023)”.
In addition, the Blue Drop report found that 3% of water systems were in a critical condition, 12% were poor, 49% were average, 31% in good condition and only 5% in excellent condition.
The Green Drop
The Green Drop Watch Report provides a picture of what has been done to address wastewater treatment systems that scored less than 30% in the 2022 Green Drop Report.
It found that 334 out of 850 (39%) municipal wastewater systems in 90 municipalities that are water services authorities (63% of the 144 water services authorities) are in critical condition.
By March 2023, only 34 of the 168 plans submitted to the department were being implemented, with the balance being in the planning phase or with no progress reported.
The department also raised concern about “the growing number of wastewater networks and treatment systems that were found to be in a critical state, with Green Drop scores of less than 31%”.
The report identified key problems as being funding, resources, vandalism and theft, poor infrastructure and lack of capacity in municipalities.
The department said it was looking to strengthen collaboration with municipalities to improve the treatment plants, which are not effective.
The No Drop
The No Drop report looks at demand-side management and water losses. In the last No Drop report, released in 2015, an estimated 35% of water was classified as non-revenue. In the latest report, this figure had increased to about 50%.
The report found that the country’s big metros were able to report findings effectively, but that many smaller ones struggled. Overall, it found that water loss was on the increase and non revenue water, which is water lost and not reaching a user, was high.
Philips said that “a total 46% of water municipalities don’t collect revenue from water”.
“Water losses and unbilled make up non-revenue — under 30% is the international average. We are much higher at 46%. Municipalities must improve infrastructure, repair leaks and engage with communities on water conservation.”
Responding to the reports, the executive manager of OUTA’s WaterCAN, Dr Ferrial Adam, said: “The statistics in these reports are not new, they do not give us an updated or informed view of any progress or decline.
“However, they are a way for the DWS to show its intent on compliance and highlight the extent of non-compliance by water service authorities. The reports emphasise the challenges we face as only 50% of non-compliant water service authorities reached out to DWS. The rest seem not to care that our water is not fit for human consumption.”
The department has issued non-compliance notices to 11 municipalities that did not report water quality data or other evidence indicating that they had been testing their water.
Phillips said those 11 municipalities had been instructed to issue “advisory notices to their residents that their water might not be safe to drink if it has not been properly tested.”
The interim Green Drop and full Blue Drop Reports will be released in July, while the full No Drop Report will be released in September.
Women job seekers often experience rape or sexual assault:
One of the most common human rights violations experienced by many women (inclusive of LGBTI+) across the world is gender-based violence (GBV). It is estimated that one in three women will experience physical or sexual abuse in their lifetime.
According to the World Bank, 35% of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence; 7% of women have been sexually assaulted by someone other than a partner and as much as 38% of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner.
GBV refers to violence directed against a person because of that person’s gender or violence that affects persons of a particular gender disproportionately, more commonly women and the LGBTI+ community. Violence against women is a violation of human rights and a form of discrimination against women. It undermines the health, dignity, security and autonomy of women, yet it remains shrouded in a culture of silence. It is worth mentioning that men and children are also affected by violence of this kind.
Although we speak a lot about GBV, we unfortunately do not speak enough about the rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment that women face in recruitment processes or when seeking economic opportunities and the silencing that comes with it. This issue is something everyone knows about but it is seldom openly spoken about. This is often incorrectly referred to as “trading sex for a job” or “sex for jobs”. Describing it as a “trade” is unacceptable — these “trade-offs” are simply rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment.
It cannot be called a “trade-off” when there is no consent on the part of the woman. The crime of rape is committed when a person has non-consensual sexual intercourse with another person by means of physical force or threats. The offense of sexual assault is committed when a person makes sexual contact with a person, like touching a person’s intimate parts, without that person’s consent and a person commits sexual harassment when there is unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature.
Consent is an agreement between participants to engage in sexual activity. Consent should be clearly and freely communicated. Consent cannot be given by individuals who are underage, intoxicated or incapacitated by drugs or alcohol, or asleep or unconscious. If someone agrees to an activity under pressure of intimidation or threat, that isn’t considered consent because it was not given freely. Unequal power dynamics, such as engaging in sexual activity with an employee or job applicant, also mean that consent cannot be freely given.
Unfortunately, women have historically faced numerous barriers to their engagement in the economy. These barriers reduce their employability, constrain their ability to participate on their own terms, restrict the options available to them and limit the likelihood of utilising their full potential to economically empower themselves and grow in their careers.
Recruitment for men and women vary where an exchange is sought by the recruitment team of an organisation. Men often bribe the recruitment team with money or non-sexual favours to get a job but “sex” is the preferred inducement for women to get employment, funding for their businesses or other economic opportunities. Correctly put, recruiters rape, sexually assault and sexually harass women for them to get economic opportunities.
In some industries, especially those that are male dominated, it becomes difficult for women, especially young women, to get jobs, funding for their businesses, government procurement opportunities, promotions, etc, without sexual or relationship advances from men. It is unfortunate that in some organisations, being raped, sexually assaulted or sexually harrased increases a woman’s chances of being employed or being given the economic opportunity they are seeking.
The sad reality is that the women are often exposed to HIV and other sexually transmitted infections because the power dynamics mean it is left to the recruiter or boss to decide whether any form of protection, mostly a condom, is used or not. Unfortunately, the state of women’s economic empowerment leads to concerns about possible HIV infection being less important than the desperate need for money to feed families and support themselves.
This is often one of the main reasons why women do not put themselves forward for higher positions or promotions. Disparities in women’s representation in positions of power is because of the disproportionate burden imposed on women by a culture that discounts the prevalence of rape and harassment and by policies that inadequately address them, allowing them to perpetuate.
The unfortunate part is that speaking out exposes victims to further victimisation and often does not derail the career prospects of the perpetrator. The perpetrators use their power to silence the victims either by bribing them, giving them the desired job, threatening to fire them should they speak out, suing them when they do speak out, resigning from office or violating them further. There is a lack of support for women when they experience these kinds of violations.
It is not only an external battle for these victims, it is also an internal and an economic battle. For example, ??“There are many women who are believed to have been sexually exploited by the perpetrator in return for permanent positions. Some are managers in different departments and are earning high salaries and they are afraid of coming forward because they think this might lead to them losing their jobs or demotion.” The internal challenges the victims face regarding speaking out are also unfortunate.
Karabo Mokgonyana is an award-winning legal and development practitioner and programme director for the Sesi Fellowship and Skill Hub, a womxn- and youth-led organisation that provides young womxn with mentorship and skills development.
New probe into R138m contract given to slain tenderpreneur’s firm:
The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) wants to recover R138 million paid to one of murdered tenderpreneur Sibonelo Shinga’s companies for a five-year social facilitation contract by the embattled Umgeni Water Board.
The SIU is also probing a R85 million a year, five-year security contract awarded by the entity to Tactical Security Solutions, the security company run by Adriaan Snyman, bodyguard to Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema, in August 2021.
On Friday, President Cyril Ramaphosa signed off on a new proclamation which allows the SIU to investigate alleged corruption and maladministration in the two contracts at Umgeni. The proclamation also empowers the unit to take legal steps to recover any money paid irregularly, to either of the companies, in the duration of their contracts with Umgeni, along with another five contracts it had identified earlier as potentially fraudulent.
The Mail & Guardian understands that both transactions were red flagged by the SIU during an earlier investigation it conducted at Umgeni, but the terms of reference did not allow the unit to act on the information it uncovered at the time.
Umgeni, which provides water to the majority of KwaZulu-Natal’s population, is in the process of being merged with Mhlathuze Water, which services the northern section of the province, into a single entity, Umgeni-uThukela Water.
The water board racked up R2 billion in irregular expenditure in 2021 and 2022, which is understood to include the contacts being investigated by the SIU.
The two contacts were awarded during the tenure of the outgoing board, led by chairperson Gabisile Mathenjwa, which was fired by water and sanitation minister Senzo Mchunu earlier this year.
The board had been removed by Mchunu’s predecessor Lindiwe Sisulu, before being reinstated by a court. Board members have approached the high court to have Mchunu’s decision to act against them set aside and to have the board of the new entity dissolved until their matter is resolved by the courts.
The SIU proclamation, which covers the period from 1 March 2018 to 2 June 2023, empowers the investigating unit to “recover any financial losses suffered by the state through corruption and negligence”, spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago said.
“The investigation will delve into any improper or unlawful conduct by officials or employees of the Umgeni Water Board or the state, the applicable service providers, or any other person or entity in relation to the allegations.”
Kganyago said the SIU was empowered to approach the high court or its special tribunal to “correct any wrongdoing uncovered during its investigations caused by acts of corruption, fraud or maladministration”.
The SIU would also refer any evidence pointing to criminal conduct to the National Prosecuting Authority for prosecution.
A source with intimate knowledge of the process said the SIU was looking at the awarding of the social facilitation contract to Shinga’s MPS Strategic Solutions (MPSSS) by former chief executive Thami Hlongwa.
Hlongwa resigned in 2020 shortly before the board appointed by Sisulu was set to table a forensic report into the contract and others signed with companies owned by Shinga, who had allegedly paid for a birthday party for the chief executive in Cape Town.
Umgeni subsequently terminated contracts with MPSSS and Raminet Technologies, both owned by Shinga, who was shot dead in Durban in January 2021 after attending a family funeral. No arrests have been made in connection with his shooting, after which Hlongwa, who is understood to have survived an attempted assassination, went underground.
MPSSS went to court to challenge the termination of the contract and was reinstated to provide the facilitation services, for which it is understood to be paid a percentage of the overall project value.
The suspect payments to MPSSS are assumed to include R54 million for three months of facilitation work in communities living in areas affected by Umgeni water reticulation projects near Umkomaas on the South Coast during the Covid-19 lockdown period.
At the time, a whistleblower at Umgeni wrote to Sisulu exposing the relationship between Hlongwa and Shinga, whose Raminet Technologies was one of the companies blacklisted for being involved in corruption involving technology giant EoH.
The MPSSS contract is understood to have been identified first by the SIU when it was investigating information technology contracts at Umgeni under the earlier proclamation.
The R220 million security contract being probed by the SIU was awarded to Reshebile Aviation and Security Services in 2018 but the award was set aside after a court challenge by Excellerate Services, the previous contractor, over a flawed procurement process.
Reshebile’s guards remained in place until August 2021 while the contract was re-advertised and eventually awarded to Tactical Security Services, owned by Snyman.
Tactical’s staff are still providing the service guarding Umgeni’s dams, pump stations and offices, after an unsuccessful court application by Reshebile in October that year to interdict the process.
The fired Umgeni board’s application for an interdict against Mchunu is expected to be heard by the Pietermaritzburg high court on Friday.
Last month, members of the Amatola Water Board, fired by Mchunu in March, were reinstated by the high court in Makana.
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