Lockdown: WSC plans virtual meeting on water provision in South Africa

South Africa’s Minister of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation has planned to hold a virtual meeting with the Portfolio Committee on Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation on Tuesday, 21 April 2020.

Both departments would meet to discuss the impacts and initiatives they have so far undertaken in providing water and sanitation to citizens.

The initiative undertaken to scale down densification during the Covid-19 outbreak would also be discussed at the meeting.

While commenting on the need for the departments to hold the meeting, Ms Machwene Semenya, the Committee Chairperson said, “Following the recent announcement made by the Parliament’s Presiding Officers on the resumption of the business of Parliament, the committee deems it necessary to hold a virtual meeting to get an update on progress by both departments in ensuring that the people of South Africa get access to water.”

“Maintaining a level of hygiene requires access to water and we have noted commendable roll-out of water tanks to communities that were without water,” she stated.

“Similarly, we have noted some communities that have complained about lack of water. This meeting will ensure that we get progress on the measures of intervention that are already implemented,” she added

Basic issues to be discussed at the virtual meeting are the impact of the COVID-19 virus on communities without access to continuous supply of piped, potable water and initiatives undertaken by the Department of Water and Sanitation to address this.
The departments would as well discuss expenditure on water and sanitation and de-densification on COVID-19 initiatives, and the extent to which this would impact on the set targets that are already in place within programmes and sub-programmes outlined in the 2020/21 Annual Performance Plans of both departments.