Water’s dodgy authorities headed for fall
Parliament watchdog set on swift probe and criminal prosecutions
● Themba Godi, the chairman of parliament’s prime watchdog body the standing committee on public accounts, says he wants former water and sanitation minister Nomvula Mokonyane to answer for the destruction of her department without delay — and with possible criminal charges to follow.
He’s been working on the terms of reference for a joint inquiry by Scopa and the portfolio committee on water and sanitation that will pull in the Treasury, the Special Investigating Unit and the auditor-general.
He says he has met with the NPA to ensure that it has a permanent official at the inquiry “to pick up issues” and refer them to the police for investigation.
There’s not a moment to be lost, says Godi, an African People’s Convention MP.
“The sooner it starts the better. Before people suffer loss of memory or start disappearing.”
He says it became clear a full inquiry was necessary after the department failed to answer questions satisfactorily during hearings last month.
The collapse of the department and abuse of public funds has left it unable to carry out its mandate of providing water to the people.
The department has contributed to a water crisis not only in the Western Cape but around the country, he says.
“The department is now so dysfunctional and bankrupt that it is unable to undertake projects in Limpopo, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape to ensure that those of our people who do not have water, get it.
“The department has ensured that we are not able to strategically manage the limited water resources that the country has.
“We want to know who did what and why, and how things came to be where they are.”
He says the main purpose of the inquiry is to seek accountability for the mismanagement and misuse of public funds.
He wants criminal investigations to proceed promptly against “anybody” who is implicated in the inquiry.
“We will confer with the police about criminal charges we believe they should pursue as information comes out.
“There are many people out there who know a lot of things, and they will be encouraged to come forward.”
He doesn’t want the inquiry to take more than a month. “I want speedy closure. We need to demonstrate results to the public.
“Our people want to see criminals being charged and sent to jail.”
He says in meetings with her department, Mokonyane and her officials “constantly assured us they had everything under control, there was nothing to worry about”.
When they tested this against the fate of the Giyani pipeline project to bring water to villagers in Limpopo, they quickly realised that these assurances were nonsense.
The R1.3-billion budgeted for the project ballooned to R2.5-billion. And that’s just the first phase. There is no money left for the second phase, which was supposed to bring water to the people through taps in their villages.
“It started as an emergency project but has taken four years so far,” says Godi. “And there are still huge question marks about how it was run, how the costs escalated and how contractors were appointed.”
What we’ve received from this department has been endless denial
His committee has had three meetings with the department and is still no nearer the truth, he says.
This is one of many matters he expects the inquiry to shed light on.
“What we’ve received from this department has been endless denial and assurances that, ‘no, we are sorting things out’.”
He says the committee was strung along until “things went off the rails”.
Parliamentary oversight has since improved, but “in spite of the flurry we see now, we still as parliament need to up our oversight game”.
There is more political will for oversight now than in the past, says Godi, who has been chairman of Scopa since 2005. “But I need to satisfy myself that what we’ve seen recently is not a transient phenomenon. That it is institutionalised, irrespective of who is in power. So that oversight is carried out all the time, not just at particular times under particular circumstances.”
He says parliamentary oversight is too much about the “internal dynamics of the ruling party”.
Mokonyane’s appointment as minister of communications is only explicable as a function of internal dynamics within the ANC, he says.
“It couldn’t have been anything else because the department she has been running is dysfunctional.
“There is no way she should have been given another portfolio.”
He says even the disastrous Bathabile Dlamini “at least had a department [social development] that was still standing when she left. You can’t say that about water and sanitation.”
Also in his sights, he says, is the Public Investment Corporation. “I think it is a haven of a lot of wrong things.”
He finds its R9.3-billion investment in Steinhoff’s empowerment shareholder Lancaster 101 “very suspicious”.
Lancaster is 51% owned by the PIC and 49% by former trade unionist Jayendra Naidoo.
“The explanation they gave made no sense to me. That one must be flagged for further engagement.”
He says the PIC must be “very much a part of” any inquiry into Steinhoff.
But his concerns with the PIC, which manages state employee pension funds and has about R1.8-trillion in assets, go well beyond Steinhoff.
“I am not satisfied with the way the PIC is being managed. A lot of things have been going wrong there under the watch of the CEO Daniel Matjila.”
He says he is concerned about the level of due diligence in their investments. He is worried that too many of its investments have been “informed by very narrow and self-serving interests”.
“I am setting my eyes on them,” he says. “I have them in my sights.”