EAST LONDON – The Department of Water and Sanitation held a tariff consultation session in East London where they discussed the proposed water tariffs by Mzimvumbu- Tsitsikama for the 2024/2025 financial year for water management.
The Department wants to ensure that those who contribute to water pollution pay for discharge as results from water samples taken by the Department show that water quality in the Eastern Cape is very poor.
These people to pay include those who have licence and registered waste discharge systems. They will meet the department halfway by constructing facilities that will clean the used water so that when discharged back, it doesn’t contribute to more problems.
The Department introduced technical strategies for working with municipalities and have confidently said that the municipalities hire competent and highly skilled people, however, they emphasised that if the hired do not deliver service, they will distance themselves.
The Department give a lot of support to municipalities but these municipalities take the strategic plans for granted and neglect their responsibilities.
Stakeholders like farmers, mining and industry owners use raw water for irrigation and more, hence the negative use of water affects them too. The debt affects communities and stakeholders negatively as it costs the department over R1.7 billion rands.
As they are in the first consultation, there is still more to address about the budget as there it is not yet finalised. The Department will have to use what they have until they have a stable structure in the organisation.
