While almost all people who live in formal housing have access to water supply infrastructure, for many, the supply is not reliable.
According to the Department of Water and Sanitation, about 88% of people in South Africa who live in formal housing (at least RDP level or above) have access to water infrastructure, but only 67% have a reliable supply.
Water infrastructure access means it is available within 200m of a house. For the approximately 7.6-million people living in housing below RDP level, the situation is much worse: only 12% have access to water infrastructure.
This demonstrates how water and sanitation infrastructure are failing across the country. Water supply systems are not proactively maintained due to budgetary constraints and government mismanagement.
In most provinces — Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, North West, Free State, Northern Cape and Mpumalanga — the situation has gotten worse in recent years. In others, there has been some slow improvement.
The department’s data is based on the 2011 census and its own modelling. The figures should be treated as estimates.
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Metal Star
Van is getting married, but he and his fiancee have never done the deed – in fact he\’s never been with any woman before. He\’s getting more and more nervous as the big day approaches, so he confides in his friend. His friend says \’No worries man. I\’ll come by the honeymoon suite before you guys get there, and I\’ll hide behind the curtain, and I\’ll whisper instructions to you.\’
\’You\’d do that for me?\’
\’Sure thing man!\’
So the wedding day arrives, it was a lovely service (so I was told, I wasn\’t there myself) and Van\’s friend sneaks into the honeymoon suite as promised and hides behind the curtain.
Van and his new wife arrive in the room, get settled on the bed, and things are getting steamy.
But Van is still super nervous and his tummy is bubbling, so he murmers to his wife, \’Listen babe, I\’m just gonna go to the bathroom quick. I think it\’s that wors roll from earlier.\’
\’Sure thing babe.\’
So Van goes into the bathroom, and he\’s taking quite a long time. And his wife is starting to feel the nerves herself. And it\’s getting worse. She can\’t hold it in. But she doesn\’t want to go after he\’s gone and totally ruin the mood. So she looks around and finally finds a shoebox. Quickly, she does her business in the shoebox, and she shoves it under the bed just as Van comes back from the loo.
Van gets back on the bed and they go at it again. But after a minute or so Van smells something not so lekker.
\’What\’s that smell?\’
\’Nothing babe,\’ he wife tries to assure him.
\’No man there\’s definitely something not so lekker in this room!\’VSo Van starts looking around the room, in the corners, in the cupboard, and finally he looks under the bed, and sees the shoebox.
He pull it out, and opens it up, and in horror he shouts \’Sies! Daar\’s kak in hierdie doos!\’
And from behind the curtain his friend yells, \’NEE MAN, DRAAI HAAR OM!\”
Elder Pogue
Slap chips – French fries [slup-chips] An Afrikaans word meaning limp and describing soft, fat French fries. These are usually mixed with tomato sauce and vinegar.