Municipal infrastructure in murky water

The dire state of ageing municipal infrastructure in South Africa has again come under the spotlight with warnings of a national crisis.

While all types of infrastructure are taking strain, it is particularly the delivery of safe drinking water and the state of wastewater treatment systems that have been making headlines, illustrating the serious problems being experienced.

The spotlight was turned onto this state of affairs again recently when Felix Fongoqa, president of professional engineering body Consulting Engineers South Africa (Cesa), told the WaterTec Africa 2009 conference in Midrand that the ageing infrastructure in local authorities is a severe national crisis that needs urgent attention.

He said his organisation was very concerned about the negative consequences of not giving enough attention to the maintenance of existing infrastructure, particularly in the local government sphere, and singled out the issue of water and wastewater systems.

But other municipal infrastructure such as electricity distribution, roads, sewage works, street lighting, sanitation, schools, clinics and more are also negatively affected by the lack of proper maintenance, replacement and upgrading.

“Hardly a week goes by without us being reminded in the media about the state of water and wastewater systems in our country,” Fongoqa said.

He was referring to recent media headlines around the outbreak of cholera, particularly in the northern provinces of South Africa; the deaths of more than 140 infants in the Eastern Cape; and the frequent outbreaks of diarrhoea in various municipal areas around the country, among other things.

Currently, more than 50 municipalities responsible for supplying clean and safe drinking water to millions of people are under investigation regarding the quality of their water.

Lamenting this sad state of affairs, Fongoqa told the conference that only 22 of the 402 municipalities and bulk water providers achieved Blue Drop status. In addition to this, only two of the 11 bulk-water providers were awarded Blue Drop status for every system that they supplied, he said.

Apart from the fact that there are some areas in the country that have never had any infrastructure, South Africa is not alone in having to deal with ageing and deteriorating municipal infrastructure. It is indeed a worldwide phenomenon.

For example, the Chinese city of Beijing drastically altered its municipal infrastructure investment rules to allow private and foreign investors to engage in modernising the city’s infrastructure.

In Canada 18 months ago, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities released a report warning that the country’s municipal infrastructure, much thereof many decades old, was near collapse with 80% of the country’s municipal infrastructure being past its service life.

Municipalities say they cannot maintain infrastructure because of the skills shortage, engineers say municipalities are not filling the vacancies, others say incompetent and unqualified political cronies are being appointed to key municipal positions and who do not effect proper control; while the auditor-general’s office says municipalities are letting things go to the dogs because they are not spending their budgets or curbing fraud and maladministration. It seems a vicious circle.

Many share Fongoqa’s view that the dire state of the maintenance and operation of South Africa’s water infrastructure coupled to “a huge technical skills shortage” are to blame.

There is consensus in engineering circles that maintenance of infrastructure must move to the top of the agenda and that current spending by local authorities does not cover even a third of that required for proper maintenance and refurbishment.

Fongoqa also confirmed what many others have been saying, namely that a large portion of South Africa’s waste water treatment works have reached the end of their design life, with many more closely approaching theirs.

In addition, there are insufficient plant operators at municipal level to manage these technically complex systems.

Fongoqa also praised the continued commitment of President Jacob Zuma and his administration to the government’s R787-billion infrastructure spend despite the shrinking economy, and found it encouraging that the government had prioritised electricity, housing, water and sanitation and the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP).

He added that economists predict that South Africa can expect the government’s infrastructure programme to add around 7.5% to the gross domestic product over the next seven years.

Meanwhile, South Africa’s former Finance minister already last year, when delivering his medium-term budget policy statement, announced a grant of R3.1 billion for a three-year programme focused on uplifting water storage and supply capacity.

Offering further assistance to local authorities in fighting the infrastructure collapse, Public Works Minister Geoff Doidge recently told Parliament – while delivering his Budget Vote – that a total of R4.1bn would be spent before the end of March 2012 on an EPWP fiscal incentive to support infrastructure projects funded by provinces and municipalities.

Doidge indicated that R465m had already been set aside during the current fiscal year and that the amount would rise progressively over the three-year period of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework.

However, while this incentive is primarily concerned with the government’s pledge to create four million new jobs by 2014, Doidge also announced that the government is to develop a prioritisation model for planned maintenance of state-owned assets, and envisages “an effective rollout of the National Infrastructure Maintenance Strategy (NIMS) with emphasis on all spheres of government to implement proper plans, which will factor in maintenance of public infrastructure”.

In another government initiative, the Department of Co-operative Governance (previously Department of Provincial and Local Government) launched the Municipal Infrastructure Investment Framework (MIIF) in partnership with the Development Bank of Southern Africa.

Its aim is to assist municipalities with improving planning, programming, budgeting and accessing funding with regard to infrastructure and removing infrastructure service backlogs in South Africa by 2014.

At a recent seminar concerned with the latest version of the MIIF, some delegates found that there was still a lack of an overall national infrastructure strategy among other shortcomings.

This may indeed be a valid point, considering the many different and apparently uncoordinated, plans, strategies, programmes and bodies supposedly involved in this sphere.

Long before the launch of the NIMS and the MIIF, the government launched the Consolidated Municipal Infrastructure Programme (CMIP), which was to assist the Reconstruction and Development Programme.

Then back in 2007, the Department of Provincial and Local Government released its draft Municipal Infrastructure Support Strategy (MISS).

It stated at the time that a review of the first term (post-1994) of local government had revealed serious challenges regarding, among others, access to sanitation, universal access to portable water, a lack of access to electricity and the eradication of the informal settlements by 2014.

These challenges also include the provision of infrastructure to enable the successful hosting of the 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup.

However, many of the targets set by these strategies have not been met, while others are unlikely to be met.

The MISS review further revealed that the delivery of sustainable infrastructure and basic services is not only about infrastructure construction, but also about the viability of the entire local government system.

The MISS, it said, was aimed at contributing towards making local government systems sustainable, with reliable service delivery and a general improvement in the performance of the government as a whole and that its implementation formed part of the Five Year (2006 to 2010) Local Government Strategic Agenda.

Fongoqa’s speech echoes much of what another expert, Dr Kevin Wall, an expert on infrastructure asset management at the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research, told last year’s Southern African Transport Conference when he delivered a paper on progress with the national infrastructure maintenance strategy.

Wall noted that although the government had invested heavily in providing water to 15 million people while progress was made in improving the lives of people through the provision of infrastructure such as roads and sanitation – and that some public sector entities maintained infrastructure at a high standard through good leadership, adequate budgets, having skilled staff in place and more – others lagged far behind.

He found that despite the good performance in some sectors, there was strong evidence that infrastructure of before and after 1994 was not being maintained properly, and old infrastructure is not being refurbished or replaced
as needed.

Wall further singled out wastewater treatment works as being of particular concern, as well as water treatment works, water and sewer reticulation, on-site sanitation, some provincial and municipal roads, and some provincial health and education facilities.

He warned that unless maintenance is improved in these sectors, funds to address the cost of repairs and unplanned replacements will have to be found from capital budgets, which will severely limit the programme for addressing backlogs and expanding service delivery.

Wall pointed out that infrastructure maintenance should be recognised as a strategic tool for improved service delivery that creates jobs and saves costs.

Apart from the government’s various infrastructure programmes and strategies, organisations such as the South African Local Government Association are trying to address these inadequacies by improving the quality of municipal leadership through training and education programmes.

And the Development Bank of Southern Africa has developed the Siyenza Manje (“we are doing it now”) programme that facilitates the deployment of retired or senior professional engineers, planners, finance people and young professionals to low-capacity municipalities, while also providing grant funding to assist municipalities with the planning of systems.

However, it would seem there is a long way to go yet.