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Somebody once said: “In the future, the wars won’t be fought on the availability of oil and mineral resources, but it will be fought on the availability of water.”

KwaZulu-Natal Premier Willies Mchunu has welcome experts and international delegates to the United Nations World Water Day Summit and Expo. The Summit is currently underway at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre.

The President of the Republic of South Africa, His Excellency J.G Zuma officially opened the Summit and Expo in his capacity as the Chairperson of the Heads of State Committee on the Unites Nations High Level on Water.

Amongst the guests attending include Joakim Harlin, Vice-Chair of UN-Water, Getachew Engida, Dep- DG of UNESCO, Prof Patrick Verkooijen of the World Bank, Gerson Lwenge, Minister for Water and Irrigation, United Republic of Tanzania.

Others include, African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) and His Excellency Mwai Kibaki, UNESCO Special Envoy to the United Nations on Water, and former State President of the Republic of Kenya

Welcoming guests, Mchunu remarked: “I am reminded that somebody once said in the future, the wars won’t be fought on the availability of oil and mineral resources, but it will be fought on the availability of water.”

“We are looking forward to your deliberations. We acknowledge the presence of experts and other key role-players. We will learn best practices on how to ensure adequate provision of water for both domestic and commercial use.”

“It is important to point out that as a result of the existing lingering drought a provincial state of disaster was first declared in October 2014 and subsequently again on 11 November 2015. This situation has since deteriorated even further and it is clear that drastic further measures will have to be taken to avert serious damage and even loss of life.”

“Even though the province has recently received good rainfall, we all understand that we are approaching the end of our rain season and most of our major dam levels still remain low. According to the Department of Water and Sanitation the current average levels of our dams in KZN is still 13% below what it was in the corresponding period last year.

It is for this reason that the Joint Operations Centre for the Umgeni System has remained active and a 15% restriction is retained.”

“As can be expected, this disaster situation has had a devastating impact, not only on our economy and commercial demand for water, but also on human access to potable drinking water, drinking water for livestock and game farms, crop production and food security, as well as the state of the environment in general.”

“This has also contributed to a 6.3% reduction in the number of households directly involved in agriculture over the period 2011 to 2016 and has thus further contributed to increased urbanisation in KZN.”

“We must acknowledge the substantial effort and disaster interventions from the National, Provincial and Local spheres of government to deal with this crisis situation.

This has made it possible to drill more boreholes in critical hotspots, install mobile packaged plants in areas most severely affected, the acquisition of more water tankers to augment distribution, as well as the establishment of off-channel water storage to augment raw water supply.”

“Over and above the R503 million spent in the 15/16 financial year the Department of Water and Sanitation has reprioritised a further R700 million in the 16/17 financial year for drought interventions.”

“Although we are proud of what has been done to mitigate our risks related to this drought thus far, we believe that we still have to do much more. It is noted that despite mass mobilisation and awareness campaigns, we are still not achieving our water saving targets.

Too many people in our province still do not appear to understand the severity of the situation and are not responding positively to calls to adhere to water restriction measures.”

Issued by KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government