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Following an oversight visit to the Nooitgedacht Low Level Water Scheme in Port Elizabeth today, the DA discovered that citizens in the area are being confronted by a rapidly dwindling water supply due to the crippling drought in the region.

The towns of Humansdorp and Patensie which heavily rely on the Kouga Dam, now face a serious risk of running dry as the region was declared a disaster area in May 2017. Since then water restrictions have been enforced.

The Department of Water and Sanitation is required to provide the bulk water supply to municipalities across the country to enable the distribution of water to their citizens, especially where communities face dire conditions of droughts and water scarcity.

Water and Sanitation Minister, Nomvula Mokonyane, must now urgently ensure the availability of water as per the constitutional mandate of her department.

What is further alarming is that other parts of the Eastern Cape are now also being severely affected by the drought.

Across the Eastern Cape dam levels have plummeted to severely low levels. The latest figures of the dam capacity in the province are as follows:

• Kouga Dam at 7.71%;
• Churchill Dam at 18.71%;
• Impofu Dam 43.47%;
• Loerie Dam at 86.55% and
• Groendal Dam at 51.80%.

The reality is that national government failed in its duty to ensure an adequate supply of water and repair and maintain the aged water infrastructure which has exacerbated the severe water shortages in drought stricken provinces of the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Limpopo.

Minister Mokonyane as the rightful custodian of the country’s water under the National Water Act has a legal mandate to work hand in hand with local and provincial authorities to find solutions to the crippling drought. At the end of the day all South Africans will be impacted in some way or another if the water crises throughout the country is not resolved.

The DA will not allow for Minister Mokonyane to continuously shirk her key responsibility and trample on our people’s basic human right to have access to clean water.

We will be conducting oversight visits to every corner of the country that has been severely impacted by the drought and collate information that can be submitted directly to the portfolio committee as soon as parliament reconvenes. Scarcity of water is not a political football, all sectors must come to the party including Parliament in order to ensure executive oversight.

Issued by DA