Minister Majodina highlights significant challenges with municipal water provision

WATER and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina painted a sad state of affairs in the local government sphere regarding the provision of water yesterday, saying many municipalities were unable to collect revenue.

- MAYIBONGWE MAQHINA [e-mail]

Majodina noted with concern that when municipalities collected the revenue, they used it for something else.

“They don’t ring fence water sales to be able to maintain the water infrastructure, because that is where the water infrastructure has totally collapsed, but also the technical capacity and skills of municipalities,” she said.

Majodina made the comment when her department appeared before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa).

“In the past, when we started with local government, we had about 84.6% of engineers at a local government level, but as I speak now, we are sitting at about 6.4 engineers. The positions are filled, but filled with the wrong people.”

She observed that every time there was no water in a village or township, people blamed her department, which was responsible for building water resources such as dams, canals, or water treatment plants.

“We regulate, but when it comes to reticulation of water and the provision of water is a different mandate altogether, that is in the local government.”