R5,5 BILLION NEEDED TO REPLACE CITY’S AGEING WATER INFRASTRUCTURE
About 40% to 50% of the city’s water infrastructure is rotten and Msunduzi Municipality requires about R5,5 billion to replace it.
This is according to the specialist adviser to the city manager, Mike Greatwood, in an exclusive interview with The Witness yesterday.
Greatwood had earlier told the council that the city needed to spend on non-revenue water reduction strategy interventions over the next five years in order to avoid a water crisis.
He further requested council to transfer R4 million from the savings the water and sanitation department has made in the past six months.
The retired water services manager said the city was losing over R100 million in water losses per year.
“Moving R4 million to reduce the R156 million we are losing each year is worth it. The situation can be avoided by complying with the real need to reduce consumption by reducing lost water. In order to do this, sources of internal funding stand the best chance of achieving the aim of reduced losses.
“More money needs to be spent on operational expenses. If we are not spending enough on infrastructure, the situation gets worse. If we don’t spend, we are running a risk of having water restrictions and we are all going to suffer if it gets to that. In the recent asset report we received, around 50% of the water infrastructure has surpassed its lifespan,” said Greatwood.
He said circular 72 of the Municipal Finance Management Act regulates how the city should calculate water losses.
“Other known losses are burst water pipes and the estimations during meter readings. There is accounted-for water loss, that is water delivered by water tankers to areas with dry taps. The extraction point of this water is metered and the tankers’ capacity is recorded. We have 37 purchase points around Msunduzi. We have saved
R55 million so far, so the least the council could do is to give us 10% of that amount so that we can continue with the [water reduction loss] programme. We are saying some of the money we have saved should be put on operating expenses,” he said.
A report he presented to the council before the interview with The Witness stated that the reduction in water usage was a difficult but necessary step if the city was to avoid a water crisis in the near future.
“It is possible to cut our consumption by applying side management and reducing our water losses as per our non-revenue master plan. Funding must be found to concentrate upon this aspect as soon as possible. The use of savings achieved on the bulk purchases is an innovative but effective way of proving the cost benefit to reduce water losses in the Msunduzi water service authority. In addition, Msunduzi does not have to solely rely upon municipal infrastructure grant funding to continue the implementation of its water loss reduction programme,” reads the report.
Despite the dire financial and old infrastructure challenges, another report by the acting municipal manager revealed that as of March 20, the city has not used R267,8 million of its grant funding. Of this amount, R39,6 million was earmarked for infrastructure services and for municipal disaster recovery projects in particular.
The city’s senior manager of water and sanitation Brenden Sivparsad said every cent saved on water can be ringfenced to be invested on hard components of saving water, that is replacing the pipes. “Through grant funding we reduced bulk purchasing from uMngeni-uThukela Water by R50 million over the past six months. We have engaged in a memorandum of understanding with the water entity to use our apprentices and that will have positive results on our reduction drive and we are finalising these agreements,” said Sivparsad. • chris.ndaliso@witness.co.za
“Around 50% of the water infrastructure [in Pietermaritzburg] has surpassed its lifespan.”