The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) is calling for the water outages currently crippling South Africa to be declared a national disaster, as it believes that the water challenges have reached crisis proportions.

The SAHRC will be issuing a letter to the head of the National Disaster Management Centre containing the recommendation of a national disaster on the water crisis.

The commission said it was concerned by the ongoing downward spiral regarding water management and distribution as communities and households in various parts of the country continued to battle with lack of access to water.

The water challenges are widespread and significantly disrupt the lives of communities. It is also significantly compromising the delivery and functioning of other essential services, such as schooling and healthcare.

The commission highlights how data from the South African Water Justice Tracker corroborates the fact that the water crisis is not a localised phenomenon but is widespread, affecting various parts of the country.

The Water Justice Tracker is a project partnership between the SAHRC and the University of the Witwatersrand to track drivers and causes of failure by water services authorities in providing households with clean and sufficient water.

It reveals aging infrastructure; inadequate funding models; skills deficit and poor intergovernmental coordination as some of the key systemic and structural drivers contributing to the dysfunctionality of water services authorities.

The crisis is also a result of insufficient attention and allocation of budget for the maintenance of water infrastructure; insufficient planning for population growth; high levels of water losses beyond the acceptable norms; and the scourge of water infrastructure vandalism related to the emergence of water mafias, besides others.

“Considering the dire nature of the water crisis in the country, the SAHRC, empowered by Section 13(1)(a)(i) of the South African Human Rights Commission Act 40 of 2013, recommends that government declare the water crisis engulfing the country a national disaster in accordance with the Disaster Management Act 57 of 2002.”

“The water crisis has reached a level where a broad, integrated and coordinated effort is required to turn the dire situation around. Therefore, the classification and concomitant declaration of the water crisis in the country as a national disaster constitutes a reasonable measure in the circumstances.”

Properly and effectively implemented, the national state of disaster will ensure that emergency funds are mobilised and government collaboration is better coordinated.

“An intervention of this magnitude is essential amid the ongoing water crisis in the country,” the SAHRC said, cautioning, however, that the declaration of a national state of disaster on the ongoing water crisis should not become “a breeding ground for corruption, malfeasance and embezzlement of funds”.

Sufficient oversight measures to ensure fiscal prudence should be instilled.

The SAHRC calls on government to continue to institute proactive measures, such as ensuring preventative infrastructure maintenance; critical water infrastructure rehabilitation; expediting the finalisation of bulk water projects; and instituting community behavioural change campaigns on water preservation.