A critical look at South Africa’s Green Drop Programme

Cebile Ntombela,Richard Meissner,Maronel Steyn,Winile Masangane,Nikki Funke

doi:10.4314/wsa.v42i4.21

Abstract

In this paper we briefly reflect on the different legislation and types of regulatory mechanisms that South Africa’s Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) has in place to try to improve the performance and compliance of water services authorities (WSAs) in the controversial wastewater services sector. In particular, we focus on DWS’s incentive-based mechanism, the National Green Drop Certification Programme (Green Drop Programme), and evaluate the achievements and challenges associated with its implementation to date. While there has been considerable improvement in performance in all areas of the programme since its inception in 2009, much still needs to be done in order to address the dire situation the country’s wastewater services sector finds itself in. Challenges facing the Green Drop Programme and the municipalities implementing the programme include: lack of human resource capacity to prepare effective corrective action plans and/or wastewater risk abatement plans; lack of finances for mainstreaming of wastewater treatment in municipal decision-making; lack of forward planning; problematic bureaucratic processes; complex relationship between some municipalities and DWS; theft, vandalism and misuse of wastewater treatment infrastructure and not enough transparency. Based on this discussion, we make some concluding remarks about possible areas of improvement that could potentially strengthen the functioning and success of this programme, and thereby help to improve the levels of performance and compliance of the country’s WSAs. Keywords: wastewater treatment, regulation, Green Drop Programme, incentive-based mechanism, command-and-control mechanism

Highlights

In South Africa water services authorities (WSAs) are responsible for providing potable water and sanitation services to all customers in their respective areas of jurisdiction (RSA, 1997)
Both the Enforcement Protocol and the Green Drop Programme are meant to enable Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) to proactively encourage, support and incentivise compliance. After this pro-activeness, reactive and punitive measures may be applied in cases of recurrent non-compliance. It is DWS’s broad vision that neither of the two regulatory mechanisms should take preference over the other, but that they are both to be implemented in a complementary manner to facilitate improvement in wastewater service provision (Department of Water Affairs (DWA), 2010)
In this paper we focus on some achievements as well as some challenges facing the implementation of the Green Drop Programme, which are discussed in more detail

Summary

Introduction

In South Africa water services authorities (WSAs) are responsible for providing potable water and sanitation services to all customers in their respective areas of jurisdiction (RSA, 1997). These services include, amongst other responsibilities, the management of domestic wastewater treatment works (WWTW) and sewage disposal systems. Wastewater treatment is the process of removing organic and inorganic matter from the waste stream and making it suitable for releasing back into the environment This technology can often be very expensive and requires high levels of technical knowledge, specialist plant operators and specific equipment (DWA, 2011a). Many individual WWTW have no surplus and run at full capacity (DWA, 2013)

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Results

Conclusion