Waste Water Treatment Plants: The financing mechanisms associated with achieving green drop rating.

Background The Water for Growth and Development Report (Department of Water Affairs, 2009c) notes with concern that poor water quality is a threat to the growth of the South African economy. Malfunctioning wastewater treatment works (WWTW) is a major cause of the deteriorating water quality in the country and it may be expected to threaten neighbouring countries in the river basins which South Africa shares with its neighbours. In an effort to reverse the trend of deteriorating water quality in the country, the Department of Water Affairs has introduced the Green Drop programme. This programme aims to improve the performance of WWTWs through providing an incentive to the works in the form of a scoring system which rates the aspects of WWTW performance. Those WWTWs which were performing properly were awarded Green Drop status. The first Green Drop assessment was conducted in 2009. A total of 449 WWTWs out of 853 municipal WWTWs were assessed in this first round. Thirty two of the WWTWs assessed were awarded Green Drop Status, but a number of these achieved very low scores (see Chapter 2). It was against this backdrop that this project set out to achieve the objectives as described in the following section.