Water summit raises business prospects
Last week, Water Affairs Minister Nomvula Mokonyane cracked the whip over municipalities that defaulted on their water payments and raised the alarm about proper planning and investment in the sector.
Yet Tuesday’s Water Infrastructure Investment Summit offered a glimmer of hope for the manner in which the water sector has to approach water management and planning in SA. The presence of businesses both from within and outside SA is a welcome sign that the government is finally taking to heart the need for private sector involvement in its programmes.
With this positive step towards working public-private partnerships, one hopes that the attitude towards business will be strengthened and put to good use for the development of the economy across the sectors.
For too long the government, and the governing party in particular, have sent mixed signals to business, which has led to an atmosphere of mistrust. It is time that the state adopted a more businessfriendly attitude to enable the types of investment envisaged at the water summit to flourish.
The minister is correct that access to finance is the lifeblood of water infrastructure delivery and that the cost to achieve that on a sustainable basis is exorbitantly high. This is a point acknowledged by business leaders, experts and investors at the summit. I hope this will translate into practical programmes and investment in better management solutions in the water business.
While access to finance is critical, it is worth considering that integrated planning and consistency are also critical for the achievement of sustainable objectives such as water security and provision.
We all remember the sense of optimism when the government adopted the National Infrastructure Plan in 2012, aimed at transforming the economic landscape while creating jobs and delivering services to communities.
Looking at the proliferation of plans and ideas fuelled by what is today termed the radical economic transformation agenda, one has to ask the difficult question: what happened to the ambitious national infrastructure plan?
Why has government been so quiet on the progress of these integrated plans? With an initial planned investment of R827bn to build infrastructure and upgrade existing facilities, we were told that this investment would improve access to healthcare facilities, schools, water, sanitation, housing and electrification, and that investment in the construction of ports, roads, railway systems, electricity plants, hospitals, schools and dams would contribute to faster economic growth. What happened to all of these grand plans and how does the envisaged infrastructure of the summit speak to these?
Investment in water infrastructure has now become urgent, especially with the reality that most of SA’s water and wastewater infrastructure and systems are decades old, as the minister acknowledged at the conference. With the growing population and more demand for water resources, SA cannot afford to rely on dilapidated infrastructure. In fact, the involvement of business is timely as the economy needs the contribution of everyone in ensuring the availability of water for all sectors.
The challenge of integrated planning and investment should form the pinnacle of all government activity, but as the statistician-general lamented, the lack of a planning culture is going to make it difficult to align all the existing plans in a way that makes sense to investors.
The imminent ANC policy conference needs to stabilise the investment environment and ensure that economic drivers are less prone to the kind of political machinations we have seen lately.