As Joburg battles to contain water supply problems that have plagued large parts of the city, millions are being spent on “water tanker mafias” cashing in on the ongoing crisis.
Joburg Water spokesperson Nombuso Shabalala told TimesLIVE Premium they dispatch roaming and mobile water tankers — the number of which depends on the severity of the situation.
“We work and liaise with relevant stakeholders who alert us when a certain community is in need of a water truck,” she said, stating that in this crisis they had started with 25 roaming trucks and had later increased this to 35 a day.
She said about R18m was being spent a month on an alternative water supply, with some of this amount going toward emergency water tankers for planned and unplanned shutdowns and most of it towards the day-to-day provision of water tankers to informal settlements.
The allocation of tankers was done through ward councillors and through “our own monitoring systems”.
During the Eikenhof water challenges, an alternative water supply central co-ordinating team was established “to ensure improved logistics of alternative water supply delivery”.
Environmental justice activist Dr Ferrial Adam, executive manager of WaterCAN, told TimesLIVE Premium: “We have been trying to get the names of those who are benefiting, and we have been asking for the rates paid to emergency water supply contractors as we want to know what is being spent and who is being paid. But we are just completely ignored.
“It’s a completely corrupt situation and nobody’s being held to account.” She said she had been fobbed off with instructions to lodge a Paia application if she wanted access to the information.
Councillor Leah Knott last year posted written questions to the city's MMC for environmental and infrastructure service about water tanker provision and the monthly costs paid for the services. The response, which took six months, gave only the standard rates and only vaguely addressed how the issue was handled in a crisis.
“Each region has a varying number of trucks used on (sic) emergency ... there is also emergency trucks used during shutdowns, emergency repairs and ad hoc requests. An hourly rate is billed for emergency utilisation,” the response stated.
The standard rates paid for “normal” loads was R35,000 per tanker with eight trucks, each delivering “about four loads per day” — R280,000 a day in total.
Knott said 32 tankers were being run daily during this crisis. At the standard rate, this would be costing at least R1.12m a day.
Councillor Bridget Steer, whose ward includes Melville, Crosby, Brixton and has been particularly hard hit by water outages, explained that Joburg Water had an approved panel of water supply contractors who were paid standard municipal rates.
We suspect there is a mafia operating, but we have no way of proving it.
— Cllr Bridget Steer
Standard contractors supplied the truck, diesel and a driver and were supplied with municipal water at no cost and paid per day. She said many parts of her ward were permanently supplied by tankers.
“But when there is a crisis, they call in other people. People we don’t know, and nobody will tell us who they are or what they are being paid. We suspect there is a mafia operating, but we have no way of proving it.”
Dr Anthony Turton of the Centre for Environmental Management at the University of the Free State and a specialist in water as a national security risk said the Joburg water crisis was a case of “a public crisis being turned into a private revenue stream”.
“The bigger the crisis the bigger the opportunities. You start with an emergency because only in the case of something serious can you bypass the procurement rules,” Turton said.
He said once a mafia syndicate is in operation it is difficult to dislodge it from the system because it is invested only in escalating the crisis, particularly through sabotage.
Once water vendors have moved in, they are hell-bent on expanding the crisis to grow their business. It’s the capturing of a vital resource and creating vulnerabilities and ultimately state failure.
— Dr Anthony Turton
“Once water vendors have moved in, they are hell-bent on expanding the crisis to grow their business. It’s the capturing of a vital resource and creating vulnerabilities and ultimately state failure,” Turton said.
“These elements thrive on chaos, and they need to be investigated with urgency,” he said, as the amount of money involved was immense.
Councillor Nicole van Dyk, of Ward 99, which includes Blairgowrie, Linden and Cresta said: “We have no hard evidence, but we know that bidding wars break out in a crisis. We hear rumours and rumblings, but we have only been given the financials up until last October, so we have filed a Paia application for the information.”
Private contractor David Carmichael of All Water Supplies in Lanseria, who services only private sector clients and has not taken on any contracts from Rand Water or Joburg Water, said he was aware of the “water mafia” allegations and has been approached with offers.
“I am wary of getting involved in any of that kind of thing, but I have twice been approached by middlemen. They have offered me R6,000 a day to just park one of my tankers at the Rand Water yard and leave it there with a driver. That’s huge money — R180,000 for 30 days,” Carmichael said.
He said a 10,000l tanker costs about R1,3m, and a 20,000l tanker about R2m.
“So if you buy a tanker and land a three-year contract, you can make a lot of money.”
Meanwhile, the department of water & sanitation viewed the supply of water through the use of privately-owned water tankers as undesirable and unsustainable.
Departmental spokesperson Wisane Mavasa said: “The department does not view the use of water tankers as a desirable or sustainable means of providing citizens with water.”
However, she said, it recognises that in some circumstances municipalities have no alternative but to supply residents with water using tankers on a temporary basis.
Robert Mashego, chair of parliament's committee on water and sanitation, said they were “worried about the prevalence and growing usage of the water tankers”.
“Those water tankers must only be used when there's a crisis. How do you buy trucks in bulk for purposes of a crisis? The fact is you may end up creating that crisis for you to get business,” Mashego said.
He said the “lucrativeness” of the need for the water tankers which is growing “must be curtailed”.
“Our concerns are consistently being raised because when the infrastructure damages are repaired, you get the indication that the pipes are deliberately broken,” Mashego said.
Mashego said the committee is of the view that there needs to be a way of doing away with the water tankers, but the issues of ageing infrastructure forced some municipalities to outsource water tankers.
“We need to deal with this infrastructure that's decaying, instead of these water tankers becoming smaller and smaller but the business is growing ... we may soon end up with water no longer getting supplied by municipalities,” he said.
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