The underinvestment in the City of Tshwane’s water and electricity infrastructure has over the years seen a decline in service delivery and financial performance of both trading services.
This is according to a report on the municipal water and sanitation turnaround strategy and plan, which was passed during a virtual council sitting on Wednesday.
MMC for Utility Services Themba Fosi said it was important to approve the plan to ensure that in future water and sanitation services will be more resilient, especially taking into account “the most important yet very complex relationship between water, people and the economy of South Africa”.
He shared sentiments by other councillors that the underinvestment in water and sanitation services, including inadequate maintenance were primary causes of a decline in the reliability and quality of water services.
Council needed to pass the report to also meet the National Treasury’s requirements of a performance-based incentive grant component for trading services like water, starting in 2025/26.
Both the National Treasury Support Programme and the City were the brains behind the plan aimed at addressing water and sanitation challenges.
The report said: “The resultant water service delivery disruptions and non-compliant Wastewater Treatment Works in the City of Tshwane in May of 2023 underscored the critical importance of safe reliable water and brought to public scrutiny the poor state of water and sanitation infrastructure services in the city.”
It further noted that significant changes were needed in the water and sanitation services to stop the decline in non-revenue water losses due to illegal connections, high water consumption and poor management capacity.
“Over several years, there has been declining water and sanitation business, characterised by dropping and unacceptable standards, water blue drop status dropping, high levels of non-revenue water escalating, frequent water disruptions and water system failures,” said the report.
Last year, the City last received support from the Cities Support Programme of the National Treasury to help with addressing water challenges in the aftermath of the cholera outbreak in Hammanskraal area.
ActionSA councillor Flora Monama said the plan brought immense promise for the City to address underinvestment in water and sanitation infrastructure.
She said underinvestment led to various difficulties, resulting in declining services within water and sanitation.
Some of the challenges faced by the City, she said, included a drop in the blue drop status, escalating non-revenue water, frequent water disruption, ageing infrastructure, illegal connections, high consumptions and poor maintenance.
“We are proud to be at the forefront as the City, setting the standard for other metropolitan municipalities to follow. We are pioneering reforms that the National Treasury is guiding for trading services,” she said.
She said the Treasury has outlined that Tshwane ought to approve the strategy by July 31 as one of the requirements for benefiting from the incentives of the USDG grant.
EFF Mpho Matlhabane said his party firmly rejected Tshwane’s turnaround strategy and plan.
“The report fails to address the critical issue of permanently addressing the sanitation issue through the tender system for the past 18 years until today,” he said.
He said the City has been faced with the problem of sewer spillage posing health hazards to the public.
Additionally, he said, the privatisation of sewer maintenance has resulted in a lack of accountability and increased risk of public health.
He lamented the fact that the inclusion of electricity issues within the same portfolio as water and sanitation further complicated the strategy and diluted its effectiveness.
Fosi said it was important to pass the report for the City to have access to and adhere to the conditions of the national Treasury’s incentives.
He said: “It doesn’t necessarily talk to water. In the near future it is going to be electricity and to a certain extent environmental and agriculture and management. The incentives will be performance-based as per the national treasury and it will also get support on getting this strategy to be working.”
He said the national treasury’s technical support will be enlisted if expertise is running short in the city.
The strategy, he said, further allows the business unit to get into the market and get loans that will add value to the city.
Pretoria News