SA’s water crisis deepens as skills and leadership run dry

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JEREMY MAGGS: South Africa’s water crisis, I would contend, is no longer just about failing pipes and aging infrastructure. It is increasingly, from what I read, about a collapse in skills, in leadership and also accountability. As so-called National Water Week approaches, it’s going to put a real sharp spotlight on the sector.

Let me tell you, the numbers are stark. Municipalities are losing nearly half of all treated water through leaks, through theft and inefficiency, while many simply don’t have the technical or managerial capacity to fix the problem. So is this now less an infrastructure crisis and more a human capital failure? This is an important issue, and I’m going to discuss it with Dr Lester Goldman, who’s chief executive officer of the Water Institute of Southern Africa. Lester, a very warm welcome to you. Just call it bluntly for me, are we facing a water crisis or is it a leadership crisis?

LESTER GOLDMAN: I think it’s both. The fact of the matter is that water is a business and like any business, it cannot succeed without having the right people in place. The people include leadership, unfortunately or fortunately. I think that’s the dilemma, because at municipal level, we sit with issues where the value chain in those leadership decisions is pretty long, and it goes beyond just the technical individuals.

Whilst we need the technical individuals, we also need those in leadership and management to play their part. That is where the dilemma exists mainly.

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JEREMY MAGGS: That’s the real problem, if I’m hearing you correctly, we might have the skills, but fundamentally this comes down to real, tangible accountability, doesn’t it?

LESTER GOLDMAN: Absolutely. Running a municipality is like running a company. We have pipes and pumps, for example, that are almost like the machines. We have engineers, scientists and operators who are the staff from a technical perspective. We have audits, which are almost the reviews, and these audits, blue drop, green drop and no drop actually start sometime in April.

It’s a particularly relevant period for municipalities to consider these now. And then we have the communities who are the customers and I think the current problem is, as you’ve stated, almost half of our treated water is lost.

Then we have municipalities that fail blue drop, green drop audits, and customers who are losing confidence in the supply of water.

We need more accountability and we need accountability at all levels, because it doesn’t matter how much we invest in infrastructure, without having the right people in place, we are still facing an even bigger problem.

JEREMY MAGGS: You’ve just quoted or used a statistic which I find utterly staggering. Nearly half of treated water is lost. Dr Goldman explained to me how a system deteriorates so quickly, if it is a question of speed, and to that extent.

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LESTER GOLDMAN: Yeah, I think it’s a combination of factors and it’s obviously very localised depending on the municipality or depending upon the available infrastructure. But we understand that over time, very much like a car or any other system, it requires continuous maintenance. It requires operational investment. Then also we need further investment in reticulation, for example.

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So when there’s this lack of maintenance, obviously over time the infrastructure erodes and eventually fails.

When this happens, we have this break and interruption of water and this, let’s call it lack of O&M, operations and maintenance, is as a result of maybe a few factors. Do you have the right people? Do you have the right processes, and then do you have the correct investment?

So this is the challenge faced. We’re not so sure that the human element is dealt with, because we’re not so sure that we have the competent people. Even if we have had them in place, we’re not so sure that they’ve been held to account. But if you had the right people and you had the right infrastructure and you had the right money or investment, then at least we can tackle this problem logistically and holistically.

JEREMY MAGGS: Isn’t it fundamentally all about the money? You suggest that funding isn’t enough. Where along that value chain do you think the system is actually breaking down?

LESTER GOLDMAN: If we look at water as a business and you look at the municipality as a business, then it’s going to come down to – and if we’re talking about money and the entire value chain – it will come down to are the municipalities doing what they are supposed to do? In the water business, you get your bulk water from the bulk water suppliers, like the water boards, and you pay them for that, and you onsell that to your customers, and you collect the money. Along the way, you reduce your inefficiencies and losses, so that you can come out with a break even. That’s really where the challenge lies.

I’m not so sure that the revenue systems are working. I’m not so sure that if they are working, that money is being collected.

Then you have this cascading scenario of bad effects, because if you’re not collecting that money, you can’t maintain the infrastructure, you can’t pay your suppliers and so forth. It’s very much like a car that hasn’t been serviced, it will eventually fail and collapse.

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JEREMY MAGGS: Just finally, if we don’t get this right, and you’ve identified the three core pillars here, how bad is it going to get in the next five years or so?

LESTER GOLDMAN: Well, we hope we won’t get there. But certainly, governance failure is something that should be addressed by municipalities and those tasked with assisting the municipalities. So Cogta (Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs) and the relevant government departments need to play their part in ensuring that municipalities can improve and that they do improve.

So there are governance failures, there is maintenance neglect. I would argue that that’s where we’d come in, in that you need to have the right competent professionals in place because the professionals meet a certain standard, and they are held independently to account.

You need to have the right people in place. You need to hold them to account and then certainly you need to have the correct financial management. That goes across a number of value chains within the municipality itself, not just the technical department, but finance, HR and leadership, which is the councillors. They must play their part and hold hands in solving this challenge.

Then obviously over the next five years, well, the audits are taking place in the next two weeks. The audit results will be there towards the end of the year. The nice thing with audits and/or measures is that at least if you can measure it, you can manage it. If we know where we are, we can, along with stakeholders, work on a success plan going forward or not work on it, whichever way.

JEREMY MAGGS: Thank you very much indeed. We can’t say we haven’t been warned. Dr Lester Goldman, chief executive officer of the Water Institute of Southern Africa, thank you very much.

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