By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Department of Water and Sanitation says Rand Water and Umngeni-Uthukela Water Boards have been deployed to tackle water woes in the struggling municipalities that cannot constantly provide water to communities in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal (KZN).
This is according to ANC NEC member David Mahlobo, who also serves as the deputy minister of water and sanitation.
Mahlobo spoke during a media briefing at the party’s Luthuli House headquarters in Johannesburg on aspects of the ANC’s election manifesto.
In Gauteng, the department will deploy Rand Water, while the Umngeni-Uthukela water board will be deployed to assist struggling municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal.
Various issues in several municipalities in the two provinces have led to communities experiencing water shortages in recent weeks.
In Johannesburg, thousands have been left without water after a lightning strike hit the Eikenhof pump station.
Rand Water has since urged residents to use water sparingly as the system experiences severe strain that could lead to a total system collapse.
Mahlobo said the anger expressed by communities who are on the receiving end of the water shortages is justified.
“Those of us deployed in government, our ministry, has decided that because these metros are struggling to perform this function, we have agreed to deploy our water boards, and very capable water boards, which is Rand Water for all municipalities in Gauteng working with the three metros and others, except the Johannesburg metro.
“In eThekwini, we have deployed the Umngeni-Uthukela water board to support them,” said Mahlobo.
He said technical teams in both provinces are meeting regularly to monitor the systems.
“In all these municipalities, there is one common denominator: the water losses are very high. In Johannesburg, we lose more than 44% of water due to infrastructure challenges. Even the residents can see water running on the streets.
“We have agreed that maintenance teams must respond to these incidents,” he said.
Mahlobo added that Johannesburg Water requires at least R27 billion to address the current water supply interruptions.
“They (municipalities) must be transparent, they mustn’t run away from communicating with citizens, and they must communicate directly with the citizens.
“If they run away, we don’t know when water will come back,” said Mahlobo.
Meanwhile the underspending of grant allocations, accumulating customer and municipal debt, and inadequate progress in revenue collection across South Africa’s 257 municipalities remain a cause of concern for the National Treasury.
This was outlined by the Treasury discussing the recently released Local Government Revenue and Expenditure report for the second quarter of the 2023/24 financial year (up until 31 December 2023).
Municipal spending on both operating and capital budgets accounted for 46.3%, or R283.5 billion, of the total approved expenditure budget of R612 billion.
Revenue from billing and other sources reached 50.3%, or R310.9 billion, of the total approved revenue budget of R618.5 billion.
Municipalities also set aside R154.5 billion for salaries and wages. This marks a R7.9 billion, or 5.4%, rise from the R146.6 billion budget allocated for the 2022/23 municipal financial year. By 31 December 2023, R72.8 billion, or 47.2% of the allocated budget for salaries, had been used.
Treasury warned that grave underspending in this regard could have dire consequences on respective municipalities, especially in terms of councils fulfilling their service delivery mandates.
Regarding conditional grants as of December 31, the Treasury said R27.8 billion or 63.5% of the R43.7 billion allocated to municipalities had been transferred to local councils for 2023/24.
Looking at four grants (the Municipal Infrastructure Grant, Integrated Urban Development Grant Water, Municipal Disaster Recovery Grant and the Public Transport Network Grant), these all have a spending performance of below 50% (between 25% – 49.3%).
Treasury said that low expenditure on grants “is a source of concern because this slow performance may eventually lead to unspent conditional grants that have to revert to the National Revenue Fund (NRF).”
“The surrendering of unspent conditional grants to the NRF has negative consequences to the communities that must receive the services linked to the infrastructure to be built,” added Treasury.
Notably, Gauteng’s metros are some of the municipalities that have received warnings over their underspending of grant allocations – with Treasury threatening to cut the funds.