Water and sanitation budget just passes

WATER and sanitation minister Nomvula Mokonyane’s budget vote nearly didn’t get support from the portfolio committee as its financial state was described by one MP as “messier than a pit latrine”.

Parliament’s water and sanitation committee this week initially expressed strong reservations about signing off on the budget but, following an 11th-hour meeting on Thursday, the committee resolved to adopt the budget “albeit with various concerns”.

Chief among these was an amount of R1.8-billion the department still owes contractors from the 2016-17 financial year, R18.9million in over-expenditure and the R8-billion debt book and R2.9billion overdraft of the Water Trading Entity.

The committee said in a statement yesterday they would be exercising stricter control and have instituted quarterly meetings to track progress on these issues.

And yet, Mokonyane’s speech made no mention of her department’s economic woes, as she chose to focus instead on various projects currently under way and those already delivered.

She said that her department had made good strides in eradicating the bucket system, with about 25 000 left to remove. Of these, 14 000 were a work in progress and 11 000 would be tackled with “alternate technologies”.

She thanked South Africans for saving water during the drought that gripped the country, saying that emergency efforts, coupled with water saving efforts ensured there had been no loss of life and no water-borne illness outbreaks.

The Democratic Alliance’s Tarnia Baker said there was a “serious disconnect between planning and budget” in the department.

“Its finances are in a deeper, darker and messier state than one of its abandoned pit latrines,” she said.

Chair of parliament’s water and sanitation committee, ANC MP Lulu Johnson, said the department’s R15.1-billion budget for 2017 was less than in the previous year and made up 2% of the national allocations, placing it 13th in the queue for allocations.

“This implies that service delivery is compromised,” he said.

Mokonyane said she would be working with the department on issues around financial control. — TMG