Save water, Zuma tells nation

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Cape Town - Government aims to reduce water loss by 2014 bearing in mind that South Africa is not a water rich country, says President Jacob Zuma.

"We are not a water rich country. Yet we still lose a lot of water through leaking pipes and inadequate infrastructure.

"We will be putting in place measures to reduce our water loss by half by 2014," President Zuma said in his State of the Nation Address on Thursday.

The National Compliance and Enforcement Report 2008/09 released in November by Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Buyelwa Sonjica, revealed that a total of 2 412 environmental criminal dockets were registered during that period, compared with 1 762 in 2007/08.

Sonjica's department said that it believes that the re-establishment of dedicated green courts (including dedicated prosecutors) would have a profound impact in the fight against environmental crimes