Failure of leadership in water crisis

I refer to the letter ‘No Drought relief for Ilembe farmers’ (Courier, November 13). On the same day the Mercury headlined with ‘Water crisis was avoidable’ and to quote an extract from that article:
“Dr Anthony Turton, a water expert, said that a lack of planning , the loss of skills to transformation and poorly functioning wastewater treatment plants had contributed to the looming water disaster.”
Dr Turton alluded to the lack of strategic planning and loss of skills due to transformation as well as poorly functioning wastewater treatment plants spewing close to 4 billion litres of untreated or partially treated sewage into the country’s dams and rivers every day.
In the Courier article, Annette Steyn, the DA department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries shadow minister said that the ‘government should have held its inter-governmental meetings months, if not years ago’.
So we are once again confronted with government, municipalities and local authorities who continue to display an utter failure in leadership. They simply react to a crisis instead of being proactive, by adopting forward planning strategies.
Political posturing, infighting, financial remuneration, transformation are prioritised at the expense of critical requirements like water supply and the other well known failure – electrical power supply, which was a manifestation of the same symptomatic failures. At the end of the day transformation is a meaningless exercise when businesses have to close and farmers lay off workers under the burden of failed essential services.
I won’t even mention the other looming crises of a dysfunctional education and healthcare system.
CLAUDIO FERRI
Zimbali