Setting the Scene

Abstract

The South African system of water governance is well regulated through a cascade of legislation, policy and regulations, all newly drafted after the transition to an inclusive democracy in 1994. Legislation is comprehensive, progressive, inclusive and world-class, but the ability to implement has been eroded over time at a pace accelerated by the constant change required to transform society. As a metropolitan municipality, the City of Cape Town is better resourced than most others in the country, but resources do not stretch to meet all basic infrastructure needs and trade-offs are often politically focused on the most visible public priority. Systems had developed over many decades to comprehensively manage provision of water and sanitation services, including providing services to informal settlements and a complicated cost-reflective tariff structure. But by the start of the drought, strategy and policy had been centralised in the highest political office in the City, that of the mayor. Trust was in short supply, and the advice of technocrats was commonly dismissed as mere opinion unless it was perfectly aligned with the then prevailing ideology.

All the water that will ever be is, right now.

–National Geographic