Provision of water and sanitation during the Covid-19 crisis : comparative case study in predominantly urban and predominantly rural provinces

Abstract

The South African Local Government is mandated by the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa to serve the needs of their communities by providing a democratic and accountable government for local communities, ensure the provision of services such water and electricity to communities in a sustainable manner, promote social and economic development, promote a safe and healthy environment and encourage the involvement of communities and community organisations in the maetrs of local government (RSA 1996; Parliament of the Republic of South Africa 2018). The Government of South Africa created a three-tier governance layer, that is, national, provincial, and the local layer, to enable provision of essential services to citizens. The local layer was created as a decentralisation strategy to bring government closer to citizens and for speedy service delivery (Siddle: cited in Makale 2015). It is categorised into metropolitan, district, and local municipalities with diefrent service delivery mechanisms aimed at enhancing service delivery (RSA 1998). Despite the existence of the Local Government structure, the South African government continues to have deficient delivery of basic services such as water, housing, electricity, education, health, and sanitation especially in black urban townships as well as in rural areas in South Africa. According to the 2013 General Household Survey findings, provinces consisting mainly of urban areas and formal agricultural rural areas, that is Western Cape, Gauteng, Free State, and North West, had beetr access to basic services compared to predominantly rural provinces, that is, Eastern Cape, Limpopo, KwaZuluNatal, and Northern Cape (Statistics SA 2014). The reason for the beetr levels of basic municipal services in the predominantly urban provinces was their close proximity to points of interest such as airports, mines, national roads, educational and health facilities (Makale 2015). The provision of basic services to certain communities in South Africa has met challenges as local government still struggles to ensure that services reach all citizens. Certain areas within South Africa are still underdeveloped with lack of access to basic services and residents live in poverty. The revenue for municipalities in these areas is negatively impacted as they strive to do more with less ifnancial resources to ensure that basic services reach every citizen (Makale 2015). As a result, South African municipalities make headlines due to the unending reports of service delivery protests for not delivering on their mandate.