How?
There are technical teams we’ve authorised to do self-restriction in areas where there’s access to water without cutting them, then do load-shifting to areas where there’s no water.
What about fixing the leaks?
There has to be response capability in Johannesburg and Tshwane. If there’s a leak, they can’t take so many hours, even days, to fix it. They’re requesting we must pump more from the system but that doesn’t make sense if it’s just going into the ground. So responding to leaks is an immediate issue. Another immediate issue is this thing of selling water to ratepayers and then you don’t bring the money back to the infrastructure.
Why hasn’t that money been ring-fenced as promised by your department two years ago?
Municipalities have various reasons, but we’ve said we’re no longer asking, they must do it. The city manager and mayor of Johannesburg will give us answers by the end of February on how much of this money they are putting back into infrastructure.
Will you ensure it is ring-fenced as promised?
It has to be ring-fenced, but remember there are other competing needs. As the minister we don’t say, ‘Take everything you get from water sales,’ but we say a bigger quantum must go back to water infrastructure.
Given this crisis is all about infrastructure, isn’t this where all that money should be going?
The investment in capital expenditure is not sufficient. They need more storage reservoirs so that if there’s a system failure, you don’t have problems. But they don’t have money in terms of liquidity.
What about the R54bn the president spoke about?
The R54bn is about creating metro trading services for water and electricity. You ring-fence it, there’s a proper governance structure, internal controls, a treasury, their own procurement, running it as a business entity. That money is used for water infrastructure.
What if extra money is needed?
There must be an injection at that point, so we have to bring in the private sector.
What about corruption?
Corruption must be dealt with. One of the biggest issues is these people involved in water tankers. This tankering thing must stop.
Are you going to follow up on this?
We’ll definitely follow up. In as much as local government is an independent sphere, we can’t allow them to collapse in front of our eyes. We’ve reached a stage to say if support doesn’t work, if there’s no co-operation, we just intervene.
Do you have the legislative power?
It’s not adequate, it’s too bureaucratic. If you want to do an urgent intervention, the process is too long-winded.
How are you going to speed it up, because more and more areas around the country don’t have water services, do they?
If municipalities don’t do what they’re supposed to do, we’ll change the direct grant we give them to an indirect grant so we can then take the money ourselves to the water boards or any other agency to implement services. Because the issue is everybody wants the money so they can manage who gets the tenders.
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