The constitutional right to access to adequate sanitation is a sacrosanct right whereby all other rights in the country’s Bill of Rights find expression, and thus should be protected against any act or omission that infringes it.
There is a growing acceptance that the right to access to adequate sanitation should therefore enjoy special protection by the government as it forms a cornerstone for the exercise of other rights such as healthcare, equality and attendant socio-economic rights.
However, to much of the developing world this goal still remains elusive to a large part of the community, resulting in all manner of health-related complications and the denial of other rights such as that to actively participate in the economy to bring about positive life changes.
As a consequence of a of lack of proper sanitation, communities remain perpetually locked in the quagmire of poverty and underdevelopment.
The UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6, which in a decisive manner seeks to address lack of inadequate sanitation services, places a premium on this universal goal in order to end poverty and chart a sustainable development path.
In this context, as we mark the Sanitation and Hygiene Month, the Department of Water and Sanitation will build on ensuring that the imperative of providing adequate access to sanitation does not remain a pie in the sky ideal but is an achievable goal.
To this end, the recently released National Sanitation Policy 2016 together with the National Development Plan (NDP) recognises the need for fresh and innovative thinking in dealing with sanitation and the treatment of effluent.
This is in line with the UN Environment Stakeholders Workshop which was held recently, where chief researcher and Exxaro chair in business and climate change Professor Godwell Nhamo said there was a need for the SDGs to permeate all sectors of society.
At the workshop, Nhamo called on civil society organisations to play a part in pursuing the strategically important goal of tackling issues of lack of water and sanitation which, if not attended to, he said, would continue to stifle development.
He added: “It is time that as various key stakeholders we did more about the domestication of the SDGs because they are not coming out clearly.
“We don’t hear enough about them as news items. You don’t hear enough debates about them in Parliament.”
To this end, the department is establishing community forums with the intention of placing water and sanitation at the heart of their work. This will ensure that the issue of decent sanitation permeates all levels of society.
This is informed by the fact that although profound progress has been made in Gauteng towards eradicating the bucket system, other provinces are still lagging behind.
The 2011 Census puts the number of buckets that still exist in both formalised and informal settlements at 297 847.
This is, no doubt, a staggering number and a call to action for all stakeholders to work together.
Despite challenges that stunt the work of the department in completely eradicating the buckets, chief among them being the shortage of water and infrastructure, the department’s bucket eradication programme is on track.
A shining example of this is the eradication and replacement of the buckets with waterborne sanitation system in five towns with 608 units which were completed last February in Northern Cape, Free State and the Eastern Cape.
Thus, although there is a compelling argument that the government has a singularly important role to eradicate the buckets and provide proper sanitation, it is equally important that other role-players work with the government to deliver on this basic necessity.
This is made even more relevant when considering the many social responsibilities the government is enjoined by law to meet.
It is therefore vitally important that in our efforts to meet the needs of those most vulnerable in our communities, we do not merely generate interventions, but rather agitate for a collaborative effort between all like-minded people and institutions.
To achieve the goal of providing adequate and proper sanitation, currency should be placed on the participation of both the public and private sectors to create a seamless vehicle to extract our communities from the morass of underdevelopment.