Daily Dispatch
Water boards ‘treading water’
THE Eastern Cape is a particularly water-scarce region in a water-scarce country. The proper management of our water resources is therefore of paramount importance. Our little publicised water boards in South Africa play a vital role in managing our water resources.
Their functions include operating dams, bulk water supply infrastructure, and some wastewater systems. Most, including Amatola Water Board (AWB), provide technical assistance to municipalities. They are at the forefront of supplying water to our nation.
The Department of Water Affairs lists 13 water boards in South Africa which together, directly or indirectly, serve more than half our population. AWB alone services a vast region of some 46 800km² in extent – much of it impoverished and rural.
So when things go wrong with our water boards, South Africa is potentially in very deep trouble. And way too much is going wrong. Most of the 13 boards are, at best, treading water, while others are sinking fast. Too many of them are poorly managed and lack the requisite specialist skills and capacity to function optimally. This allows corruption, which increasingly permeates every aspect of our state or quasi state institutions, to creep in and destroy the little functionality that is left.
Amatola Water is no exception and is, by all accounts, in dire straits.
CEO Lefadi Makibinyane, who also serves on the board of Rand Water, has been dismissed and AWB is drifting rudderless in the unchartered territory of one of the worst droughts experienced in recent times.
Samwu’s Amathole district secretary Luthando Juju has accused the board of running Amatola Water like a “spaza shop”.
This week we learn his accusations seem not far from the mark. A confidential report compiled by a special task team assembled by Minister of Water and Sanitation Nomvula Mokonyane, says key positions are unfilled, it is leaking skills, has dragged its heels for years over vital water-relief projects and is bogged down in unnecessary labour battles. It is not fit to meet the needs of many floundering institutions that depend on it for assistance.
Unfortunately, government does little to facilitate the essential work of these boards.
In fact, national and local government are reportedly the various boards’ biggest creditors. AWB reportedly pulled out of water crippled Makana Municipality because of an unpaid debt of about R40-million.
Bloem Water and Sedibeng Water boards are supposedly owed about R1-billion by the water and sanitation department and municipalities. Dysfunctional municipalities in the Eastern Cape turn to Amatola Water when they are no longer able to consistently deliver water to their citizens.
Battling aging water reticulation systems, combined with the drought and a complete lack of capacity and financial muscle to do anything to help themselves, they look to AWB for solutions.
If Amatola Water also becomes dysfunctional, it will leave many municipalities up the proverbial creek without a paddle.
We need to pump more time, resources and managers into our troubled water boards before it is too late.