SA's perilous water problem

South Africa’s perilous water predicament is being exacerbated by shoddy infrastructure‚ non-paying consumers and tariffs being charged that do not cover the cost of providing water.

These are some of the key findings of a performance and expenditure review of the country’s water delivery chain‚ initiated by the National Treasury.

The review was done between November 2014 and January 2016 by Isambulo AMI Strategic Consulting and Research‚ in collaboration with Pegasys and TeCon Consultants.

By the time water is delivered to kitchen and bathroom taps across the country‚ it has travelled on an extensive journey from raw to bulk water and onto treated potable water through water boards‚ district and local municipalities.

Taps ran dry in several suburbs of Johannesburg and Tshwane during a heat wave over the past few days which saw reservoirs quickly depleted‚ in addition to major pipeline bursts that caused delivery problems.

Average water levels in the country are now below 50% and water restrictions have been imposed in major cities.

• 10 tips to save water as restrictions start to biteWith water cuts looming this summer you would do well to go into the season prepared.

The budgets of several water providers were analysed during the review‚ including Umgeni Water Board‚ Magalies Water Board‚ eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality‚ Swartland Local Municipality‚ Rustenburg Local Municipality‚ Westonaria Local Municipality‚ and Vaalharts Water.

Trends identified revealed that bulk purchases of water accounted for nearly 50% of municipal water services costs.

Water service providers had little direct control over unit costs per kilolitre of bulk water. However‚ improving the efficiency of water use and reducing physical water losses would help reduce the need for bulk water.

“Water loss is considerable – the physical loss of water in the sampled municipalities ranged between 4.4% and 28%‚ which negatively affects their revenues‚” said the executive summary of the review report.

“Repair and maintenance spending varied between 4% and 23% of total expenditure in the sampled municipalities. Spending generally fell short of the levels required to maintain and improve the water infrastructure assets.”

Weak revenue management undermined the sustainability of providing water. “The tariffs set by the four municipalities in the review did not cover the full cost of providing water. The shortfall averaged about 30% of total costs per cubic metre‚ which is both unsustainable and too large to be covered by the equitable share grant.”

Adding to the problem was the fact that not all consumers paid for water – either because they were not billed‚ did not pay or their debts were not properly recouped.

Infrastructure was a major concern. “Physical water infrastructure should be substantially improved. The review found very high levels of non-revenue water (water that incurs costs but generates no income). This includes both water losses through leakages in the system and water for which consumers fail to pay”.

“In the four municipalities reviewed‚ discrepancies between the volume of water sold and the volume of water managed ranged between 18% and 58%. These numbers support recent estimates of non-revenue water being around 37% across municipalities nationally‚” said the review.

If repairs‚ maintenance and refurbishment led to a reduction of non-revenue water to 25%‚ the four municipalities could realise an additional R800 million a year. Extrapolated across all municipalities‚ the R25 billion revenue collected for water services in 2013/14 could rise by about R5 billion a year.

The review noted that an estimated 60% of municipal water infrastructure needed to be renewed. A Department of Water and Sanitation report in 2012 estimated that new investment of about R400 billion was needed‚ over 10 years‚ to address these needs.

THE WATER CYCLE

The water services delivery cycle consists of four main phases:

 Storage of raw‚ untreated water in dams;

 Raw water abstraction‚ bulk water treatment (purification) and bulk potable water;

 Reticulation of water to consumers; and

 Collection and treatment of waste water and effluent‚ and their return to the river system.

- TMG Digital