Abstract
The impact of climatic change on the availability of fresh water for human consumption has become a global phenomenon. Looming water scarcity has been projected for years ahead. Countries that are known to be semi-arid and arid, had to swiftly adapt their consumption patterns to mitigate to possible water scarcity challenges. Informed by the Water Resource Management Guidelines, SA infused the guidelines into its water management regime. This exercise coincided with the changes in the political dispensation of the country. Amongst all the policies of the previous regime, the Water Policy needed urgent attention. The previous Water Policy of 1956 was found to be woven with political motives, where ownership and access to the resource was in the hands of a few. When the African National Congress came into power in 1994, it adopted the international guidelines on water management. This free access was capped at 6kl for all South Africans for uniformity and equality in the management of the resource.
The study asserted that the attitudes, perceptions and willingness to pay by the communities had an impact on the management of the resource in the townships. In an effort to highlight this supposition, a mixed housing development area was used as a focus area of study. In this study, three different households were identified. Four-roomed section and the Reconstruction Development Program houses, were identified to be mostly below the acceptable economic status. The mortgage section was found to have high levels of education with corresponding incomes.
Thus the study was able to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the indigent status of the household was not the determining factor in the inability of the achievements of policy objectives. All three sections did not believe in paying for water. Indigent status was found to be insignificant to the willingness to pay for water. During this period, the demand management of the resource was absent; therefore, communities adopted the attitude of a free resource. Willingness to pay by the communities was also found to be dependent on the existence of governance between the two role players in the townships. Improving governance overtime would improve willingness to pay by the households. In the policy agenda, infusing the human element may take longer than envisaged in policy goals, however the study found that it was necessary towards a sustainable usage of the resource by the...
D.Litt. et Phil. (Public Management and Governance)