Premier Thami Ntuli .
A dire warning has been issued on the state of the water system in the province with KwaZulu-Natal Premier Thami Ntuli urging municipalities to take drastic action to turn around the situation.
He was speaking at a recent water summit that discussed the state of water systems in the province and in the country.
A report tabled during the summit by the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs paints a dire picture of the state of the water system and reveals that nationally, close to 3 million people do not have access to water, and close to 12 million are water-insecure.
The discussion focused on the number of challenges in the water sector, including non-revenue water, the failure to adequately skill people in water services, water quality issues, and the appointment of poorly performing contractors to fix water infrastructure. These contractors often do a poor job and sometimes even vandalise the infrastructure in order to secure more work for themselves.
