The Blue, Green and No Drop certification programmes are the department’s regulatory mechanisms to improve municipal drinking water quality, wastewater management, water conservation and demand management.
Water experts have accused the department of water and sanitation of “dropping the ball” in the tender process for its Drop reports, which has delayed their release to the public.
The Blue, Green and No Drop certification programmes are the department’s regulatory mechanisms to improve municipal drinking water quality, wastewater management, water conservation and demand management.
The last reports, issued in December, were the 2023 full Blue Drop Report, the full No Drop report and the 2023 Green Drop progress assessment report. They exposed the deterioration in the quality and reliability of municipal water and sanitation services in the past decade.
“After the alarming results that were reported last year, one would think that the logical and the ethical next step would be to follow up to ensure that the public is informed and that we are accountable and transparent,” said Anja du Plessis, an associate professor in the department of geography at Unisa. “We cannot manage what we do not know.”
The 2023 Blue Drop report found that the percentage of water supply systems with poor or bad microbiological water quality compliance (not safe to drink) rocketed from 5% in 2014 to 46% in 2023, resulting in the increased risk of waterborne diseases such as cholera and diarrhoea.
The Green Drop progress assessment report found that 40% of wastewater treatment systems were in a critical state, compared with 30% in 2013. Ninety of the 144 water services authorities had at least one critical wastewater system.
The No Drop report identified that the national average for clean and treated water lost through leaks, or which could not be accounted for, climbed from 37% in 2014 to 47% in 2023.
The reports were introduced in 2008, with the first annual reports released in 2009 and each year thereafter, until they were disbanded in 2014 under former water and sanitation minister Nomvula Mokonyane. In 2021, the then minister, Senzo Mchunu, resuscitated the certification programme.
The department’s spokesperson, Wisane Mavasa, said the two-year contract from 2021 to 2023 ended with the production of the Blue Drop report and Green Drop progress report. A separate service provider produced the No Drop report.
“Towards the end of this contract, the department developed a combined specification for all three Drops and went to the market on open tender twice but could not proceed to final evaluation due to bidders not meeting the mandatory requirements set for the large team of assessors and moderators,” Mavasa said.
Time pressure meant a limited number of bidders (three) were then asked to submit proposals. The department had evaluated their bids and the procurement process was being finalised, Mavasa said.
But Ferrial Adam, the executive manager at non-profit WaterCAN, said the department was providing “unacceptable excuses” for the delay.
“We can’t stop monitoring annually because things are in such a bad state. We cannot drop the ball on the one thing which we have, that is public information on being able to assess our municipalities and how they’re doing in terms of water and sanitation.”
Referring to the findings of the last Blue Drop report, Du Plessis noted: “We need to know how our municipalities are rated so that consumers and the public know what is in their drinking water; if their drinking water is safe.”
“The only way you’re going to know that is if the government is being transparent and holding these service providers or local municipalities accountable. We can’t hold them accountable if we do not know what’s going on and the only way we know what’s going on is by auditing and follow-up reports.”
Mavasa said the department is finalising the procurement of a service provider for the assessment of the 144 water services authorities, starting with the wastewater systems (Green Drop).
She said the department had been monitoring the municipal systems to address poor performance, and the department’s regulatory enforcement action was continuing.
The department is planning the full assessment of the wastewater systems, “still within this financial year”, together with a progress report on drinking water quality (Blue Drop) and water use efficiency (No Drop). The audit will focus on the municipal financial year ending July 2024 to “ensure most current information”.
Mavasa said that after selecting a bidder, training with assessors on the criteria will begin. Then discussions will be held with municipalities at provincial symposiums on the assessment criteria to prepare for the assessments, which are due to start in January next year.
She said the department was encouraged that municipalities were already uploading documentation in “anticipation of the upcoming assessments”.
One water expert, who requested anonymity, pointed out that the tender issue had “literally stopped the audit process for an entire year [2024]”. The expert estimated that it would take at least eight months for the reports to be finalised.
“The department does not know what the status is of these municipalities and whether they’ve actually implemented the remedial actions that they were supposed to do as per the 2023 reports,” they said.
The expert cited how, for the 2023 Blue Drop report, for example, the audit period under review was 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2022.
“What this means is that since June 2022, there has been no audits that have been done of the municipalities or results published. So now, if we’re going out in 2025 to do audits, are we going to be doing 2023-2024 results and then publishing it at the end of 2025? “The audits in 2025 are going to produce a report that’s going to give data that’s three years old.”
Adam added: “We don’t know if municipalities have gone up or gone down … They already are not doing what they’re supposed to do in their action plans. Some of them have not provided action plans; some of them are repeat offenders and they’re getting away with it when the department drops the ball like this.”