Big leak in water department

Government limps from one crisis-torn department to the next, with senior National Treasury executives suggesting that Cabinet place the department of Water and Sanitation under administration as “internal controls, project management and contract management have collapsed”.

The department is effectively bankrupt, R4.3 billion in the red, reportedly leaving hundreds of contractors holding bills which have remained unpaid for at least seven months. Minister Nomvula Mokonyane is also under investigation by both Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane and the Special Investigating Unit over the R26-billion Lesotho Highlands Water Project. Both investigations centre on tender and other irregularities in the Giyani Emergency Project, the cost of which has ballooned from R500 million to over R5 billion.

The profligacy of government departments is too lengthy to list, but the reek of dysfunctional governance reflects an all pervasive aura of corruption and ineptitude. It is almost as if the deployed cadres come and go with impunity, while the public funding paid by the country’s taxpayers is held in scant regard by those who control the purse strings.

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan has consistently warned the fiscus is finite. There will be no escape from this harsh reality when the cash and the water run out.