The finance minister will not be surprised to learn that worldwide only 10% of plans produced by the water departments of national governments have the money and people needed to implement them. That’s the report from the UN’s joint monitoring programme (JMP), which tracks progress on the global sustainable development goals for water.
SA is no exception. The department of water & sanitation’s master plan, launched recently by minister Lindiwe Sisulu, says nearly R900bn will be needed over the next 10 years to build the infrastructure needed for water security. The shortfall is at least R300bn. And that’s before operating costs.
At the JMP meeting, we had an interesting discussion about whether wishlists could be considered “plans”. We agreed that they should rather be seen as “proposals” and best understood as lobbying tools.
Now that doesn’t help the Treasury as it considers this year’s requests from the department of water & sanitation (and all the other departments), which can provide many good reasons why their budgets should be increased, despite the bad news that there is no money. But the budget can be cut and the important bits of the plan can still be implemented. Here’s how.
The department must understand that there is no way it will get all that money from the Treasury. At best, it will get to keep what it has received in the past few years. So the Treasury must insist on some adjustments, which will come in three categories:
- expenditure that cannot and should not be avoided;
- money that could be allocated, but only if conditions are met that ensure it will be productively applied; and
- proposals that just shouldn’t be funded from the government’s budget.
Too much of the equitable share gives some lucky residents far more than the basic supply (and few pay for the extra) while leaving the really needy with dry taps
One unavoidable expenditure is for the people who monitor the country’s water resources and raise the alarm when new investment is needed or restrictions are being introduced. Look what happened when Cape Town chose to ignore their advice — and how much extra that city has subsequently had to spend. It’s a no-brainer: monitoring, operational analysis and careful long-range planning is a gift that gives back far more than we spend on it. It must be funded — and properly spent.
Another easy decision is to keep funding basic water supplies in poor municipalities, in which many people regularly have to choose between food or water. There are many households like that, as we know from Stats SA’s household expenditure surveys (and that’s another budget line we can’t do without).
But free basic water must come with conditions. Too much of the equitable share gives some lucky residents far more than the basic supply (and few pay for the extra) while leaving the really needy with dry taps. So the Treasury must insist that local government uses the equitable share grant for what the constitution says: “to enable it to provide basic services”.
Similarly, grants to local government for new infrastructure projects should be withheld unless the municipalities concerned can show (not just promise) that they have budgeted for operation and maintenance. That will also stop them from pirating the capital grants to pay staff.
Some projects just should not be funded until the department can show that they are needed and will work. Finance minister Tito Mboweni enjoys controversy, so he should start by telling the department of water & sanitation that the next hugely expensive phase of treating the acid mine drainage bogey is not needed. Its water quality data shows that the real problem of water quality in the Vaal catchment (and the rivers that flow into Hartbeespoort Dam and the Crocodile River) is untreated sewage. With a little ingenuity, we can cope with the salts from the partly treated mine water that has been pumped into the rivers for the last few years — it is not creating any big crisis.
Shiniest projects
Then, if he is brave, Mboweni will insist that money will only be made available for the Umzimvubu dam project if its promoters can show it will be productively used. Where are the farmers who can afford the water? And why is there no hungry independent power producer demanding to be allowed to develop the hydropower component? If they aren’t there, it would be better to allocate 10% of the billions sought for smaller-scale irrigation projects instead. After all, that is what the National Development Plan calls for.
Similarly, some years ago the department of water & sanitation convinced the Treasury to allocate a “regional bulk infrastructure grant” (RBIG) for infrastructure that crosses municipal boundaries. The trouble is that while municipal grant proposals are checked by the department and the department of co-operative government & traditional affairs, water & sanitation checks its own RBIG proposals. Predictably, they seem to approve the biggest, shiniest projects available without explaining who will pay for their operation.
It is a permanently handicapped appendage of an inefficient bureaucratic administration with limited accountability
So the department should only get RBIG funds if there is a formal commitment from the municipalities concerned to pay for the operation and maintenance of these big schemes. And the municipalities must be told that if they sign up, 50% of those commitments will be deducted from their equitable share at source and paid to the water boards concerned to do the job.
For the cities — and those mining projects in places where new infrastructure is needed — the department must remember that water supply and sanitation are utility services to be paid for by their users. There are substantial equitable share and conditional grants to ensure that the basic needs of the poor can be paid for.
This public investment can be funded off-budget by the private sector if the water sector organises itself — look at the Lesotho Highlands scheme and Cape Town’s Berg River dam. The Treasury should now help the department organise and run its big infrastructure division as a proper operational organisation. At the moment it is a permanently handicapped appendage of an inefficient bureaucratic administration with limited accountability. That’s why a few years ago R3bn of water revenue leaked away into other activities.
The Treasury must tell the department of water & sanitation to set up stakeholder-managed catchment management agencies without further delay. The water users who fund them will ensure their functions are better run. With these and a few more interventions, the department’s ambitious proposals could be turned into a viable plan.
There is still the small matter of whether the department — and the water sector generally — has the human resources to make it work. But many qualified compatriots would jump at the chance to be part of a plan that works. Together, the finance and water & sanitation ministers can help to make that possible.
• Muller, a former director-general of water affairs, is a visiting adjunct professor at the Wits School of Governance and advises the minister of water & sanitation. He is also a member of the strategic advisory group to the UN’s joint monitoring programme for water supply and sanitation. He writes in his personal capacity.
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