Water Wheel May/June 2024: Water Law

Abstract

Call for more practical legal training to tackle SA water management failures It’s one thing to have great water laws. Quite another to enforce and implement them. South Africa’s post democracy water law reform process was hailed internationally, yet that praise has been tempered more recently with the steady collapse of municipal tap water supplies and the increasing level of sewage pollution in rivers across the country. A new research report commissioned by the Water Research Commission (WRC) notes that the National Water Act of 1998 and the Water Services Act of 1997 cannot be seen in isolation as these laws have since evolved to include more than 120 regulations. These laws are further in/f_luenced by many other pieces of environmental, municipal and public /f_inance legislation, along with high levels of scienti/f_ic and technical complexity.

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