Water Wheel November/December 2012

Abstract

Fluid Thoughts Fluid Thoughts WRC CEO, Dhesigen Naidoo The National Water Resources Strategy – navigating a fork in the road The South African water community is once again seized with a critical national conversation. The draft second national water resources Strategy (nwrS-2) has been gazetted for public comment. The discussions have been vibrant, informative and passionate in many forums, including parliament, where the parliamentary portfolio committee for water and the environment hosted four days of public hearings over the last two weeks of October. why is the conversation so important? why have the levels of engagement already been so high? After all this isn’t a law or a new policy – it’s just a five-year strategy demanded as compliance requirement of the national water Act after all – or is it? In several ways for many this is, sixteen years later, the follow-up to the national dialogue led by former water Affairs Minister, Kader Asmal, that led to the promulgation of the national water Act in 1998. The review that preceded the development of nwrS-2 is also timely.

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