Poor communities are only thought of in light of Covid-19 pandemic.
Original photo by: Thabo Rathaba - Water tank located in the village of Paballong, Free State.
Government and policy-makers side line the needs of the poor when it comes to long-term and sustainable plans, yet call for emergency and urgent relief in light of a nation-wide crisis. Executive manager of the Water and Research Commission, Jay Bhangwan speaks about this issue in a webinar presented by PLAAS. In the discussion Bhangwan points out how government action has failed in providing long-term solutions for South Africa’s water and sanitation management. These failures have been made more apparent in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. Government’s choice in providing temporary sanitation infrastructures to those who need it comes at a cost as these structures should be properly managed and maintained. This is something that is heavily lacking on the side of government policies according to Bhangwan.
The South African Water Caucus published a letter about the serious difficulties many rural and informal communities are experiencing, in relation to the inadequate and unsustainable water and sanitation infrastructures in their areas because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Although the letter acknowledges the already delivered water supplies, and sanitation facilities, it also highlights that many other communities have not yet received any help. The ones that have had water sources delivered, cannot use them as they are not being properly managed and maintained by local municipality districts. Many experience issues such as trucks not delivering water on time leaving people without water for whole days and Jojo tanks that run dry and do not get replenished. Such reports are reflective of Bhangwan’s stance in that government lacks the initiative to adequality manage these emergency supplies they provide. If government is not going to maintain the temporary ‘fixes’ they provide for these poorer communities then how is it helpful.
These reports show a problem in policies as government does not include long-term solutions in providing sustainabile water and sanitation structures for poorer communities within the country. 89% of households within the country have access to piped or tap water on-site or off-site within a 200-meter distance. That’s according to a 2018 household survey by Stats SA. However, Bhangwan notes that this figure was never analysed from a sustainability perspective and that when the actual minimum standards of reliability have been taken into account, the percentage of households who have access drops to 70%. He adds that in an event of a crisis, “it’s always the poorer people who get pushed at the back as we are scrambling around to find water for them in times of emergency”. This according to Bhangwan reflects the inadequacies of investment in water and sanitation infrastructure within the country and that “after 20 years, we are still not a very equal country in terms of service delivery”.
Inequality within the country stems from systematic issues because government prioritises revenue instead of equity. Bhangwan calls this a “some for all forever” mentality. This is largely because, “one of the real issues that doesn’t get discussed is how we are not a homogenous society… We cannot use a single policy paradigm to service two different societies facing different challenges where the needs are different.”
Axolile Notywala, a member of the Social Justice Coalition adds that governments provision of temporary water tanks and infrastructure shows the lack of long-term planning and fails in providing basic services to rural and informal settlements within the country. He points out that, “for decades, municipalities and government have continued to view informal settlements as temporary while many have existed for years. This means there isn’t a commitment to invest in infrastructure in informal settlements.”
In his opinion, the problem is that policymakers pride themselves in the statistics that show that 80% or 90% of people have access to water however, when thinking about what access means it speaks directly to the inequalities. This is because, “access for someone with a tap in their house is different for someone who has to travel 200m or a kilometre to get water… Is it access if I have to leave my house, with a bucket on my head and walk in the morning or night in a dangerous community?”. It’s clear that policy-makers overlook what it means to have access to water resources, and what that might mean for poorer communities.
Another issue to consider is that government’s lockdown regulations cannot possibly be met by people who live in such conditions as their means are not sustainable enough to last the entire pandemic. Tania Ajam published an article on the economic costs of the pandemic which pointed out that the longer lockdown lasts, the less effective its likely to be from a public health perspective. “Social distancing and self-isolation during lockdown is only possible in middle class suburbia. It is simply not practical in the overcrowded informal settlement and townships, where access to water and sanitation has shamefully been lacking for decades.” Government policies should be focused more on actually fixing the infrastructure problems within these communities in order for them to independently handle crises such as Covid-19.
Ajam says, “the danger of Covid-19 is that the humanitarian response swamps the systems response, that we prioritise investments into short-term, high visibility actions at the expense of building resilience. This is exactly what the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) has done.”
So, if it weren’t for national crises such as draughts or Covid-19, would government and provincial policy-makers pay attention to the needs and struggles of the poor. Do poor lives only matter when their living conditions are a threat to the rest of the country’s well-being? Do poor lives matter at all to them?
The start to a solution according to Bhangwan is that, “we need to re-look at human rights to water and offer more protection around them.” He explains that the problem lies within the lack of fairness when it comes to allocation on a municipal level. “You see how one side has been provided with 800 litres of water per capita, whereas on the other side people are only allocated 50 litres per capita, and this is because all allocations are driven by revenue.”
Infographics by Thato Mlambo.
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