We would spare a thought for those who can’t access a basic human right like water.
With the Institute of Waste Management of Southern Africa (IWMSA), in solidarity with the focus on World Water recently declaring that water is essential to all life on earth, and applauding South African municipalities for their continued monitoring of, and attention to, the quality of the countries drinking water.
According to the Groups studies, SA has the distinction of being one of only twelve countries in the world where it is safe to drink our tap water.
“As of 2012, the good news is that the quality of South African tap water is ranked as third best overall.
Also noted is that South African municipalities have wholeheartedly embraced the international Blue Drop certification programme. This is an incentive-based initiative that is used to regulate water services bodies worldwide in order to improve and maintain the quality of tap drinking water. Blue Drop certification covers a multitude of aspects of water management.
Deidre Nxumalo-Freeman, President of the IWMSA comments, “In South Africa, our constitution dictates that access to safe drinking water is a basic human right. The Department of Water Affairs instituted the Blue Drop programme in 2008 and since then, we have largely seen continuous improvement in the rankings of our municipalities in respect of drinking water quality.”
“The IWMSA is strongly focused on education and training, and has worked effectively with a number of municipal bodies in order to better equip them with an understanding of the importance of effective wastemanagement issues from the ground up. As such we believe in the efficacy of getting a message across, particularly to those working at grass roots level, in order to engender a greater appreciation of the importance of their various functions.
Nxumalo-Freeman concludes “Whilst our local and district municipalities are responsible for ensuring that we have access to safe drinking water, the quality of which must be regularly monitored and measured to see whether it matches up to national drinking water standards; we must all assist in the process and we believe that the IWMSA has an important role to play in creating awareness along with empowerment through information.”