User and consumer should pressure water bodies
- William Gumede
The provision of water in many of SA’s cities and towns has deteriorated to such an extent that many citizens are without water for long periods.
Key reasons why South Africa is suffering debilitating water outages, shortages and collapsed of water infrastructure across the country is because water boards, agencies and entities’ boards, management and key staff are stuffed with incompetent politically connected cadres, critical service delivery and infrastructure contracts are given to such cadre ‘tenderpreneurs’ without competence and without adhering to compliance rules.
South Africa’s freshwater sources are under threat of wastewater contamination. Many state wastewater treatment works are collapsing across the country, threatening ecological disaster in surrounding areas.
State board and management and tender appointments have in many instances become vehicles of patronage for those connected to the ANC. Often, on paper, legal procedures are seemingly followed to make appointments and give government tenders, however, under the veneer, these are often manipulated to ensure only those approved by ANC deployment committees or senior party leaders are appointed or approved.
Although, again, there are public management procedures to be followed, ministers can generally manipulate public finance processes and ensure that their preferred candidates are nominated. Rules, regulations, and laws are in many instances subverted or are pretend followed.
Because many staff, management and boards often lack competency, they have little understanding of the rules, financial fiduciary obligations, and compliance requirements for public institutions.
Because of this, many of these state water institutions, agencies and entities in many cases do not have the competency to competently execute functions, have very little interest in taking care of public assets. In many cases, there is no political will, interest or even desire by boards, managements, and key staff to ensure water entities are functional, deliver effective services and maintain public infrastructure. Politically appointed and connected appointees and companies are under little pressure to delivery, because they can hardly be fired or hold accountable.
The national ANC government has not built new infrastructure, even when the population has increased since the end of apartheid. Almost all the water infrastructure were built during the colonial and apartheid eras. At the same time, the ANC government has not maintained aging infrastructure in similar ways other infrastructure, such as the power infrastructure has been neglected.
Critical state water infrastructure maintenance contracts have also often been given to 'political capitalists', politicians turned businessmen and women, without the business competence, and who in many cases failed to do the maintenance. In other instances, maintenance of water infrastructure is not seen as important – with maintenance budgets often the first to be slashed.
This is not dissimilar to almost all the post-colonial African governments who have not built new infrastructure since the end of colonialism and has not maintained inherited colonial infrastructure. Almost all South Africa's water infrastructure were built during the colonial and apartheid eras.
Like most post-colonial African governments, the ANC government has neglected long-term planning to develop infrastructure for growing populations. The ANC government for the past 30 years in control constructed few new infrastructure, even when the population had increased since the end of apartheid.
South Africa has seen a breakdown of rule of law, with many ANC leaders seemingly not understanding that maintaining law and order is absolutely critical for any successful development. Criminal cartels, in some cases linked to local ANC networks have taken control in many areas of water infrastructure and delivery.
Because of the systemic breakdown of the rule of law across South Africa – sadly also to a large extent because the police have been stuffed with cadre politically appointees and police contracts have been given to cadres companies without the competence to deliver the services - criminals and vandals have also destroyed remaining infrastructure.
There has been a rise in criminal cartels taking control of water tenders. Water tanker mafias – linked to failing municipal water infrastructure, who deliberately sabotage pipes, pumps, and valves to increase the dependency on private tanker services to secure multi‑million‑rand tenders. Organised crime groups also target floods, like recently in the Eastern Cape floods, where they illegally charge residents for private water, while attacking those who provide free water.
In addition, vandals have been allowed to destroy water, and other infrastructure, such as rail, power, and public buildings such as libraries. Infrastructure, including water infrastructure have also often been deliberately destroyed by protesters during demonstrations against poor public service delivery by public officials.
Government departments at national, provincial, and municipal level to whom water entities have been reporting have not hold them accountable. In fact, often political appointees at the line departments have also lacked the skills to hold them accountable or are at times in collusion with incompetent cadres or contractors at the water entity level.
Former Water and Sanitation Minister Nomvula Mokonyane’s tenure was marred by allegations of incompetence, mismanagement, and corruption, including accusations of wrongdoing in the multi-billion-rand Giyani water project scandal. The national Department of Water and Sanitation routinely guilty of irregular, fruitless and wasteful spending. A typical example is in the 2018/2019 financial year when the Department of Water and Sanitation incurred R1.4bn in irregular expenditure. In 2020, the Department of Water and Sanitation said 138 officials were found guilty of fraud and corruption of which eleven were from senior management.
In 2024, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) heard from the Auditor-General that the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) and its entities were losing billions due to poor planning and delays. In the 2023/2024 financial year the value of delayed projects came to R2.995bn. SCOPA slammed poor planning at the Department of Water and Sanitation. SCOPA also criticised the decline in critical water supply systems, attributed to “a lack of qualified staff including, engineers, process controllers, scientists and skilled maintenance staff.”
It said 45% of the department’s Water Trading Entity (WTE) projects were delayed, including bulk water pipelines and dam repair projects that are key for sustaining lives and economic development. In the 2023 the WTE only completed 39% of planned maintenance projects last year (474 out of 1 224 projects) while the national water and sanitation department did not complete any dam safety upgrades.
In 2024, the Auditor-General reported that in the Eastern Cape, for example, problems with the Mthatha Dam’s outlet pipes, were first reported for urgent repair in 2011, however, nothing was done about it, and the pipes finally burst in 2023, leaving the residents of the King Sabata Dalindyebo Municipality without water. The Water Research Commission (WRC) in 2024 regressed from a clean audit to an unqualified audit with findings and their financial statements were found to have material errors. The TCTA could not find documents relating to fruitless and wasteful expenditure, and as a result, no investigations could be performed.
The Auditor-General said WTE and TCTA should drastically improve their compliance with legislation findings in annual financial statements, strengthen consequence management, internal controls and ensure that procurement legislation is complied with, and that investigations are undertaken in a timely manner. The Auditor-General said that the national department of Water and Sanitation must set the “right tone at the top by implementing appropriate guidelines to enforce compliance, provide training for responsible staff members and ensure that all instances of irregular expenditure are investigated in a timely manner to allow for effective consequence management processes”.
The National Treasury and Public Services and Administration (DPSA), departments that also play oversight over line departments and entities have failed to provide adequate oversight. The National Tender Board was decentralised with tenders now given to departments – however, departments have not instituted proper oversight over procurement. Departments, including Water and Sanitation do not report irregular expenditure to National Treasury. Even if irregular expenditure and corruption is uncovered during audits, there are rarely consequences. The lack of accountability fosters corruption. Board members and executives of entities are often more senior in the ANC than those in the line departments or even Cabinet ministers of Members of Parliament – so they cannot be held accountable for wrongdoing.
Government departments often appoint acting positions in senior executive and financial positions – who cannot make decisions. This is often done to deliberately weaken oversight. In the past the department had often challenged findings by the Auditor-General.
Threats are regularly made against the Auditor-General’s auditors. For example, the late Auditor-General said: “senior employees from Rand Water, a department of water and sanitation entity, intimidated his staff when they told them that that the AG’s audit findings ‘are costing them their bonuses’”.
The lack of reliable water has also caused the flight of businesses, investment, and skills and increased inflation, unemployment, and has undermined growth. We need an urgent review of all water entities. Appointments and contracts should be depoliticised and depatronaged and based on merit. Selection committees must be independent from governing parties, the results made publicly, particularly also those who were not selected. Citizens must establish users and consumer pressure groups to hold entities accountable for the quality services. Annual general meetings should be mandatory and be open to citizens, civil society, and the media.
William Gumede is Associate Professor, School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand, Founder of the Democracy Works Foundation author of Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times (Tafelberg)