Section 4 of the Constitution mandates national and provincial government departments to regulate and monitor their use of languages. The Use of Official Languages (UOLA) Act No.12 of 2012 was enacted to realise this constitutional mandate.

This policy is therefore compiled as a statutory requirement in compliance with Section 4(1) of UOLA which mandates national departments to adopt a language policy that will command its use of official languages for government purposes.

The policy represents the National Department of Water and Sanitation and is not applicable to its entities and provincial departments.