Abstract
This paper analyses the continuities and changes in water management in the Olifants basin after the first decade of implementation of the National Water Act (1998). By taking a historical perspective of the basin development trajectory, the paper shows how the White minority rulers, who exerted power until 1994, systematically denied historically disadvantaged individuals (HDIs) the right to become significant water users, let alone 'economically viable' water users. In contrast, White water users undertook major water resource development, which, by the 1970s resulted in the emergence of a 'White water economy'. Under the new dispensation (post-1994), the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) took a two-pronged approach in the Olifants basin and elsewhere for redressing the inequities of the past. On the one hand, from the central top down, it opened up the 'White water economy' into a water economy serving especially 'economically viable water users', who rapidly ceased to be White only. As reflected in a range of new measures taken in the Olifants basin, in this new water economy DWAF better targets bulk domestic supplies to HDIs, has more public participation, and is strengthening its regulatory role in terms of cost-recovery, environmental issues, and pollution prevention. On the other hand DWAF seeks to fill the enormous backlog in water services delivery to HDIs, not only for domestic water uses, but increasingly also for productive uses. The major challenge of bottom-up coordinated service delivery for multiple uses through the newly established Provincial and Local Governments and the transforming line agencies is addressed under the recently launched Water for Growth and Development Initiative.
Highlights
The Olifants basin is one of the two HELP basins in South Africa
From the 1860s onwards, some gold and diamonds were discovered in the Olifants basin, but much larger reserves were found in the adjacent Witwatersrand area in Johannesburg
A ‘White water economy’ emerged that focused on the construction and management of increasingly larger bulk infrastructure within and across basins and even across countries
Summary
The Olifants basin is one of the two HELP basins in South Africa. The basin stretches from the small eastern part of Gauteng Province, via the western and middle part of Mpumalanga Province to the southern part of Limpopo Province into the Kruger National Park, before the Olifants River flows into Mozambique. From the 1860s onwards, some gold and diamonds were discovered in the Olifants basin, but much larger reserves were found in the adjacent Witwatersrand area in Johannesburg This discovery incited the British mining and financing houses, supported by their motherland’s imperial army, to annex the Boers and, together with the Boers, to subject all African chieftaincies with brutal violence. The Shangaan were placed near Mozambique, in the homeland of Gazankulu, at the eastern border of Lebowa It is this ‘lawful’ dispossession of land, water, and mineral resources that explains why up till today hardly any of the HDIs in the Olifants basin (or elsewhere in South Africa) have formal water entitlements in their names
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