SA tap water remains world class - Molewa

(Image: GCIS)

Releasing the 2012 Blue Drop report during the Water Institute of Southern Africa Conference at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, Molewa said 98 municipalities were this year awarded Blue Status, up from 66 last year.

The average national Blue Status score jumped from 72.9% last year to 87.6% this year.

The scores have increased year-by-year since the first Blue Drop report was released in 2009, when municipalities notched up a national average of 51.4%.

In all, 153 of South Africa's 287 municipalities and 931 water systems were audited for this year's report.

Molewa stressed that just because a municipality was not awarded Blue Drop status, did not mean that their water remained unfit for human consumption.

This is because Blue Drop certification goes beyond the quality of drinking water to include aspects such as risk management, operations and asset management of water services.

The programme is not a voluntary programme but an incentive-based regulatory initiative which requires water services institutions to provide information in line with the legislative requirements of Section 62 of the Water Services Act.

The top scorers

In this year's Blue Drop report, Ekurhuleni came out as the top scoring municipality - with a score of 98.95%, followed by the City of Johannesburg with 98.92% and Mogale City with 98.79%.

Ethekweni, Tlokwe in the North West and the City of Cape Town were the next highest scoring municipalities, respectively.

Molewa commended the Victor Kanye Local Municipality (formerly Delmas), in Mpumalanga, which increased its score from 18.26% last year to 80.07% this year.

She also congratulated the Thembisile Local Municipality, also in Mpumalanga, which increased its score from 27.77% to 78.30%.

However, Molewa said she was concerned about the worst scoring municipality - Koukamma (5.6%) - and iKwezi (7.9%) both in the Eastern Cape, which are among 15 municipalities that have received warnings over the quality of their water.

"Communities have been informed not to drink the tap water without improving the quality first by either boiling or using other methods of purification," she said, adding that her department was working closely with these municipalities to bring the water quality up to standard.

Private sector involvement is key

Molewa said despite the 15 warnings, her department now knew where the problems were and would be attending to them.

Helgard Muller, acting Deputy Director-General of Policy and Regulation at the department, said the involvement of water boards and the private sector were key to improving the management of water services.

While other countries which had water audits, only looked at the quality of water, the Department of Environmental and Water Affairs also considered risk management and asset management in the Blue Drop report.

Of the 98 municipalities that achieved Blue Drop certification, 38 were serviced by water boards and about 20 by the private sector.

The top performing province is Gauteng - with a score of 98.1%, followed by the Western Cape (94.2%) and KwaZulu-Natal (92.9%), respectively.

The remaining six provinces all notched up scores below that of the national average of 87.6% - with Mpumalanga ranked as the worst performing province at 60.9%, followed by Northern Cape (68.2%).