EC owes R80m for bulk water

EASTERN Cape municipalities owe the national Department of Water and Sanitation R80-million in outstanding bulk water supply debt.

The main culprits include the O R Tambo district municipality, Chris Hani, Makana and Nelson Mandela Bay Metro (NMBM).

The department’s senior state accountant, Khaya Nocuza, said poor debt collection in municipalities and provincial irrigation cooperatives, were crippling his department’s cash flow and as a result impacted negatively on their ability to run some of their programmes.

Nocuza was speaking in East London at his department’s water tariff consultation session, where proposed bulk raw water tariff increases in the province for the 201819 financial year were presented.

Nocuza said failure by some municipalities and cooperatives to settle their debt with his department was one of the biggest challenges they faced.

He said it had led to his department operating on overdraft and failing to meet some of its obligations.

He said the non-payment challenge was not only rife in the province, but was evident nationwide.

“We are now taking contingency measures to put the operations of the department to where they should be. By 201920, all outstanding debts should be paid.”

The department had earlier this year threatened to attach assets belonging to the O R Tambo municipality after the district authority failed to settle a debt of over R87million.

This was prevented in the eleventh hour after an intervention by premier Phumulo Masualle.

Another challenge faced by the department, Nocuza said, was the illegal use of their water and over-abstraction by some municipalities.

His department also had to deal with water pollution, non-compliance with licence conditions, unmetered water, delayed implementation of waste discharge charges and non-payment of water use charges by water users. —