So many questions on a Department of Water and Sanitation in 'crisis'

According to a report by the auditor-general, the Department of Water and Sanitation is in crisis. Chris Barron asked the department’s spokesman, Sputnik Ratau . . .

Is your department in crisis?

We always have difficulty saying we are in crisis. But maybe it is a fact that the delivery of water and sanitation is a huge challenge for the country, looking at a number of things that influence it, be it population growth, population movement, urbanisation, topography, the fact that we are a water-scarce country. So the work we have to do is directly affected by nature.

What about poor management?

We could say there is an influence of that as well because poor management results from other things such as supply-chain processes that allow us to do the things we have to do, whether we have enough money to put projects on the ground when there is a need, and things like that.

There are myriad issues that have an impact on how we do things.

It all boils down to poor management, doesn't it?

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I suppose you could say yes in the ultimate. But it's a question of do we have all the ingredients we need to be able to do what we have to do?

Are you talking about the skills deficit?

The issue of the deficit of skills is something that we accept. That is why there are a number of things we have to look at not just as the department but as government.

But ... within the sector there is such fluidity of movement of skilled labour that obviously that has an impact on the skills we are able to have at any one time.

The auditor-general talks about major skills failures.

One of the things we've always accepted is that our sector is premised on an ageing workforce that has the requisite skills. Whether we are able to replenish those skills quickly enough is the question we are dealing with right now.

Haven't you left it a bit late? Many of your qualified scientists and engineers are less than 10 years from retirement. What happens then?

I think some of the efforts we've put in place, especially through our learning academies and the work we do in partnership with some of our universities, will have kicked in by then. We have a lot of people who are in the process of qualifying from university. Others in the department are working towards their registration and so on. But it takes time.

Shouldn't you have been doing this for years already?

Our learning academy started around 2001.

So why hasn't it supplied the skills you need?

We're in a very fluid situation where the attraction of those skills outside of the public service has got an impact. So, are we able to retain them? Obviously the private sector has got more attractive packages.

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Is it about money or a lousy work environment?

A lot of them don't want to work in the smaller municipalities. Obviously, that is not an attraction for a lot of people.

Consulting Engineers South Africa say they have engineers with qualifications ready to work in these municipalities but they can't get jobs because they're white.

I do not think that has been our experience. Maybe they would go to consult for short periods but whether they would want to be based there for three or five years is a different matter.

Is it true that candidate engineers leave because you don't have enough registered professionals to train and evaluate them in accordance with industry requirements?

I'm not too sure about that. We offer them exposure through the department and through our service providers. But it takes five to eight years for registration to be finalised. By that time many of them are employed elsewhere. But out of 80 candidates we have had since 2009 we have registered about seven in less than five years.

Why only seven?

Obviously not everyone is at the same level. There are those who can do things quicker than others. It's a question of the capacity of the candidates.

The auditor-general says there's been a collapse of infrastructure management. Would you agree?

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We've always said that in the smaller municipalities you obviously have a huge struggle in terms of availability and retention of skills.

You're always blaming the municipalities, but what about the role of your department?

The department has never shied away from its responsibilities. I can't think of any infrastructure we're responsible for that is substandard.

What about leaking pipes that are costing us R7-billion a year?

Most of those leaks are happening at a municipal level.

What are you doing about it?

There are three phases of answers to that question which I will try to summarise very briefly ...

Surely the least you can do is ensure that critical posts at national level are not left vacant?

We are obviously interested in all those posts being filled.

So why are five out of eight head-of-unit posts at the National Water Resources Infrastructure Branch vacant?

I do not have an answer to that.