When an Accident of Birth Determines Your Access to Water

Dear Editor

“It is now beyond all doubt that the ANC, led by Cyril Ramaphosa, is reintroducing racial discrimination across all sectors of society on a scale not seen since 1994. They are doing so in order to divide and rule. The ANC knows it is on track to lose its majority in 2024 and it hopes to use race quotas to incite racial division for narrow electoral gain.”

Hot on the heels of newly-gazetted draft Race Quotas designed to ban entire groups of South Africans from employment in certain sectors and provinces, the ANC government has now also gazetted race quotas that will determine access to water on the basis of skin colour.

The draft regulations, published by Minister of Water Senzo Mchunu on 19 May, introduce race quotas for the allocation of water use licences, which are vital to the survival of businesses in sectors such as agriculture, forestry and mining.

Under the ANC’s new water race quotas, applicants that use more than 250 000 m3 or withdraw more than a set minimum amount from streams need to meet strict racial quotas in order to get access to water – the single most critical resource required for life, livestock, agriculture and industry. Depending on the size of their water need, farmers or companies that have not “allocated” between 25% and 75% of its shares to what the regulations call “blacks,” will be denied access to water.

The consequences will be particularly devastating for the farmers who feed us all. 60% of South Africa’s water resources are currently used by agriculture to grow the food we all eat.

Under these water race quotas, livestock will be left to die from thirst because a farmer has the “wrong” skin colour. Fields will go fallow because those who till it are “undesirable.” Hundreds of thousands of workers, from all backgrounds, will lose their jobs as the parched agriculture and mining industries wither and die.

It is now beyond all doubt that the ANC, led by Cyril Ramaphosa, is reintroducing racial discrimination across all sectors of society on a scale not seen since 1994. They are doing so in order to divide and rule. The ANC knows it is on track to lose its majority in 2024 and it hopes to use race quotas to incite racial division for narrow electoral gain.

They do not care one bit about the consequences this will have for an economy that is already crippled by ANC-engineered load shedding, the collapse of our currency, and growing capital flight.

South Africans must not let them succeed. Race quotas will be the death knell for an economy already on its knees. I therefore repeat my call for a society-wide defiance campaign against ANC race quotas. We must all object to both the Employment Equity Amendment Act’s regulations, as well as the ANC’s proposed water race quotas.

The DA will continue to spearhead opposition to these destructive regulations. We are already preparing to challenge the Employment Equity Amendment Act’s quotas in court. We are also compiling our objection to the water race quotas and taking legal advice with an eye to declaring water race quotas, which will turn our agricultural and mining sectors into a parched economic wasteland, unconstitutional.

Regards

John Steenhuisen MP
Leader of the Democratic Alliance