Today marks World Water Day, a day established by the United Nations in 1992, which seeks to advocate for the sustainable management of freshwater resources.
World Water Day also serves as a poignant reminder of South Africa’s own history with water scarcity.
Executive Manager for WaterCAN, Dr. Ferrial Adam confirms that the country is indeed facing a water crisis.
“I would like to say that we have a crisis. I think that government says we don’t have a crisis because they define the crisis in geographic terms where nobody has water for an extended period of time. I think we need to look at water in both its quantity, its quality and its access and then define a crisis and I think if you’re looking at it that way, in South Africa we have a crisis.”
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The past two weeks have seen many Johannesburg residents without water. As officials scrambled for answers, Tshwane was also facing a risk of these water cuts.
Over the past weekend, Rand Water had an emergency meeting with the City of Tshwane and other two Metros warning them that its water storage had plummeted below 30%.
Adam also says government can forget about achieving their goal of safe water access for all by 2030.
“We’re definitely not going to have access for all in South Africa by 2030 and we also not going to have clean sustainable drinking water for all by 2030. So, I think that government needs to realize that they’re not going to meet their goal and we need to tackle this as an urgent issue. We need to have a war room situation but also government needs to communicate better,” he says.
