David Letsie

Paper presented to the Water for All: Policy, Finance and Institutions to Deliver Our Basic Right to Water Workshop, Edenvale, April 1999

Alexandra, like other townships, is expected to comply with the payment of rising costs for water services in spite of problems related to the poor quality of the water infrastructure in the township. Soweto civic in July 1996 marched to the Johannesburg local council offices against the increased water charges. They were told these increases were due to the need to pay for the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), a project to build very large dams in Lesotho.

A joint workshop was convened early 1998 attended by Soweto and Alexandra civics to address these various concerns. During the discussions of this workshop it was also established that the Lesotho Highland Water Project represents an expensive, ecologically unsound water supply project whose expansion is not needed for many years. A Rand Water Board official informed the workshop that according to their calculations the next phase, Phase 1B, was not needed for another two decades.

Subsequently on 3 March 98 the two civic leaders submitted a claim to the World Bank's Inspection Panel to delay the decision of the World Bank Executives Directors on lending a reported US$50 million for the Lesotho Water Project until there has been proper consultation and workshops conducted on the subject. It was also agreed at the workshop that the Department of Water Affairs (DWAF) may finance such workshops. On the 19 April an intimidating letter was received by the two leaders from Minister Kadar Asmal which resulted in the formal withdrawal of the leaders from this claim on 20 April.

The letter from the minister was construed by many civic members as an intimidation of our leadership and the withdrawal gesture did not mean acceptance of the LHWP and its extension. Civic members' and township residents' concerns remained unaddressed. The withdrawal created problems within the civic movement causing a deep split on how to proceed in addressing our concerns.

The truth of the matter is that Gauteng consumers bear the bulk of the LHWP costs, both for capital and recurrent expenditures. Millions of the province's low income citizens are already beset by severe problems of poverty, disease, environmental decay, geographical segregation and women's oppression due to the inadequate levels and high costs of water and sanitation services.

South Africa's inequality in access to water is striking. According to a recent Central Statistical Services Household Survey, only 27% of African households have running tap water inside their residence and only 34% have flush toilets. By consuming less than 2% of all South African water, the country's black township residents together use less than a third of the amount used in the middle and upper class's swimming pools and gardens, not to mention white domestic (in house) consumption or massive water wastage by white farmers who have enormous irrigation subsidies over the years and who use 50% of South Africa's water. Moreover, out of every 100 drops that flow through the Gauteng pipes, 24 quickly leak into the ground through faulty infrastructure.

Still more waste occurs in leaky communal, yard and house taps. In the higher elevations of Alexandra township, these problems are witnessed in perpetual lack of pressure. Hundreds of thousands of low income-income people in Alexandra and other townships have no immediate house or yard access to reticulated water supplied by our Johannesburg Municipality, and instead receive at best only communal access, with all the public health problems that it implies. Indeed the lack of available water on a universal basis means that public health conditions are worse, geographical segregation of low income Gauteng residents (from wealthier residents) is more extreme, women are particularly inconvenienced, and their income-generation and care-giving capacities are reduced, and the environment is threatened (in part because of the shortage of water born sanitation). Leaking communal taps and pipes result in streams of dirty water and pools of muddy water with unprotected electricity wires on the ground in the water.

As a result of the expansion of the LHWP and the building of Phase 1B, the Mohale Dam, we believe that these problems will be exacerbated rather than ameliorate our access, equity and quality problems. This could not come at worse time, as Gauteng Municipalities - including Johannesburg - are suffering extremely serious financial difficulties that are forcing them to dramatically increase the retail price of water and the pace of water cut-offs to low income consumers.

As residents of Alexandra township, we are part of the low income consumer population who must pay a disproportionate bill for the LHWP. Three Alexandra residents, upon hearing that leadership had withdrawn its claim to the World Bank's Inspection Panel, filed a claim anonymously, requesting that the Inspection Panel urgently proceed with investigating our concerns as residents of Alexandra township. The requesters asked the Inspection Panel do so with the understanding that at the time they would like to remain anonymous in view of the tension within the civic caused by the minister's intimidating letter.

The Inspection Panel visited South Africa to consider whether to recommend a more detailed investigation into the claim. The requesters questioned the Panel's independence from the World Bank and ability to reach an objective decision and were left with a sense of dissatisfaction at the answers they received. The Inspection Panel's findings showed that these doubts were not unfounded. It reported that the requesters' concerns about conditions on the ground are valid, but that there does not appear to be a connection between these conditions and the LHWP.

It failed to find a connection between the requirement that Gauteng residents pay for the dam and the increase in the price of water to residents. It was not concerned with either the World Bank's failure to investigate whether the Mohale Dam was needed or the World Bank's violation of its own policies and procedures. It simply dismissed the problems in Gauteng as part of the legacy of apartheid. It recommended that the Executive Directors do not authorise a full investigation into the request for inspection.

In addition to existing problems with water services, the building of the Mohale Dam will cause more harm to the residents of Alexandra, Gauteng and surrounding areas due to price increases for water and less money for projects to fix leaks and improve infrastructure.

The Alexandra Civic has continued to debate issues around water services in the township and will pursue projects to address leaks and infrastructure. It will work with civics and organisations across the province and country to call for a stop to Phase 2 and all further phases of the LHWP and to concentrate our energies on meeting peoples' basic needs whilst addressing all forms of wastage. Conserving water will allow us to contain demand and ensure that we don't need further expensive dams.