Parched Earth: ANC introduces Race Quotas for water use

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.