Lambert de Klerk, AfriForum’s manager of environmental affairs. (Photo: Archive)
AfriForum submitted formal comments on the Water Services Amendment Bill to the parliamentary portfolio committee on water and sanitation.
AfriForum welcomes certain provisions aimed at strengthening accountability – especially personal accountability, improved enforcement mechanisms and some government reforms – but warns that the bill in its current form could entrench the structural weaknesses behind the country’s water crisis rather than solve it.
AfriForum argues that the crisis with water services is not primarily caused by a lack of legislation, but by institutional failures, politicized technical appointments, weakened supervision, insufficient enforcement and declining professional capacity.
The ongoing realities of wastewater treatment failures, sewage pollution, and serious threats to water quality underscore systemic operational breakdown that legislative reform alone cannot fix.
Institutional independence, competence and consistent accountability are also necessary for legislative reform to be successful.
“We already have laws that prescribe duties and standards. However, there is a lack of professional capacity, independent oversight and thorough, continuous enforcement. Without the necessary precautions, new powers can lead to centralization and political interference instead of improved service delivery,” says Lambert de Klerk, manager for environmental affairs at AfriForum.
AfriForum calls on the portfolio committee to refine the bill by strengthening institutional independence, prioritizing technical competence, clarifying procedural guarantees for interventions and enforcement, enabling broader participation in service delivery in order to support durable sector recovery and enabling more private sector involvement and participation in service delivery.