{"id":109769,"date":"2026-03-02T10:29:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T10:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/?p=109769"},"modified":"2026-03-02T10:29:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T10:29:24","slug":"water-services-amendment-bill-afriforum-warns-centralised-control-will-not-fix-the-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/water-services-amendment-bill-afriforum-warns-centralised-control-will-not-fix-the-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Water Services Amendment Bill: AfriForum warns centralised control will not fix the crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Lambert-de-Klerk-ENG-2.mp3\"><\/audio><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Soundbite: Lambert de Klerk (English)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Lambert-de-Klerk-AFR-2.mp3\"><\/audio><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Soundbite: Lambert de Klerk (Afrikaans)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>AfriForum submitted formal comments to Parliament\u2019s Portfolio Committee on Water and Sanitation on the Water Services Amendment Bill. AfriForum welcomes certain provisions aimed at strengthening accountability \u2013 particularly personal liability, enhanced enforcement mechanisms, and some governance reforms \u2013 but cautions that the Bill, in its current form, may entrench the structural weaknesses behind the country\u2019s water crisis rather than resolve them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>AfriForum argues that the water services crisis is not primarily caused by a lack of legislation, but by institutional failure, politicised technical appointments, weakened oversight, inadequate enforcement, and declining professional capacity. The ongoing realities of wastewater treatment failures, sewage pollution and serious water-quality threats underscore systemic operational collapse that legislative reform alone cannot fix without independence, competence and consistent accountability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe already have laws that prescribe duties and standards. What is missing is professional capacity, independent oversight, and consistent enforcement. Without safeguards, new powers can translate into centralisation and political interference instead of improved service delivery,\u201d says Lambert de Klerk, Manager for Environmental Affairs at AfriForum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>AfriForum calls on the Committee to refine the Bill by strengthening institutional independence, prioritising technical competence, clarifying procedural safeguards for interventions and enforcement, enabling broader participation in service delivery to support durable sector recovery and enabling more private sector involvement and participation on service delivery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AfriForum submitted formal comments to Parliament\u2019s Portfolio Committee on Water and Sanitation on the Water Services Amendment Bill. AfriForum welcomes&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":79751,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11166,11162,13727],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environmental-affairs-media-statements","category-media-statements","category-we-will-do-it-ourselves"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":11166,"label":"Environmental affairs Media statements"},{"value":11162,"label":"Media statements"},{"value":13727,"label":"We will do it ourselves"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Lambert-de-Klerk-AfriForums-Manager-for-Environmental-Affairs-1-1024x403.jpeg",1024,403,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"AfriForum","author_link":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/author\/chante-kelder\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":11166,"name":"Environmental affairs Media statements","slug":"environmental-affairs-media-statements","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":11166,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":11162,"count":264,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":11166,"category_count":264,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Environmental affairs Media statements","category_nicename":"environmental-affairs-media-statements","category_parent":11162},{"term_id":11162,"name":"Media statements","slug":"media-statements","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":11162,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":2588,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":11162,"category_count":2588,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Media statements","category_nicename":"media-statements","category_parent":0},{"term_id":13727,"name":"We will do it ourselves","slug":"we-will-do-it-ourselves","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":13727,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":62,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":13727,"category_count":62,"category_description":"","cat_name":"We will do it ourselves","category_nicename":"we-will-do-it-ourselves","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109769"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109772,"href":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109769\/revisions\/109772"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artikels.afriforum.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}