Introduction

The Department of Water and Sanitation, as a sector leader, is embarking on developing and finalising the Draft Water and Sanitation Services Policy on Privately Owned Land. The current draft policy is a culmination of the work done in 2011 when the Department developed a draft water and sanitation services policy on privately owned land. However, at the time, the policy was never finalised, and the approval processes of the policy were never ascertained.

The latest policy development is in response to the 2017 Court Case of Mshengu vs uMsunduzi LM, uMshwathi LM, uMmgungundlovu DM and others, including DWS as the sixth respondent. Land Rights-Based NGO Association for Rural Advancement (AFRA) representing Mshengu and Ngema, took the uMsunduzi LM to court for failing to provide basic services to farm dwellers. The court judgement declared that the failure by uMsunduzi LM, uMshwathi LM and uMgungundlovu to provide farm occupiers and labour tenants who are living in their area of jurisdiction with access to basic sanitation, sufficient water and collection of refuse is inconsistent with the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa particularly Section 9, 10, 24, 27(1)(b), 33, 152, 153, 195 and 237. With this court judgment, the Department is then compelled to revive this draft policy to provide a policy framework on how to deal with the provision of water services to people living on privately owned land.

The Draft Water and Sanitation Services Policy on Privately Owned Land expands and operationalises chapter V(5) of the Water Services Act (Act No. 108 of 1997), which discusses water services intermediaries. During the development stages of the draft policy, affected municipalities were consulted, in effort to do a bottom-up approach in the development of this policy.

Various other government departments such as Department of Employment and Labour, Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Department of Human Settlements, Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, Department of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment, Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, Department of Basic Education, Department of National Treasury, and other organisations such as South African Local Government Association, and Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent were consulted and they provided their comments on the draft policy.

On the 23rd of September 2022, the Minister of Water and Sanitation approved the Draft Water and Sanitation Services Policy on Privately Owned Land to be gazetted for public consultations. The Draft Policy has been gazetted by Government Printers Gazette Notice: 47558 on the 22 of November 2022. It is against this background that the Department of Water and Sanitation is undertaking on comprehensive stakeholder consultations for the Draft Water and Sanitation Services Policy on Privately Owned Land for 60 days, and calls the public to submit their written comments within the gazette period.