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1
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Background and purpose
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Municipal water supply and sanitation services are an essential service for South Africa’s population of over 50
million people and for the effective functioning and growth of businesses, commerce and industries in and around
our human settlements.
Historical backlogs, increased service levels and rapid urbanization have put pressure on existing municipal
water
services infrastructure resulting in regular failures of service delivery and associated customer dissatisfaction.
The report draws on readily available information within the Department of Water Affairs (DWA) and sector
partners to set the strategic framework for more detailed investigations and intervention action to follow.
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2
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Infrastructure Functionality
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When it comes to actual infrastructure operation and functional performance, this requires an in-depth focus on
the individual infrastructure elements. The water supply-chain essentially comprises the following stages:
This report focuses on the first 9 stages from “source-to-tap” which includes:
1. Water source (rainwater, groundwater, river
or lake)
2. Water resource development (rainwater harvesting, boreholes, dams or run-of-river)
3. Raw water distribution (pipe lines, canals, raw water pump stations & reservoirs)
4. Water treatment (water treatment works)
5. Pump stations
6. Bulk water pipelines
7. Water storage ( reservoirs)
8. Water reticulation networks
9. Water use points (e.g. street tap, yard tap and/or house connection)
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3
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The problem Statement
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All information relating to the infrastructure functionality should reside within the municipalities, however, for
national government to access this data has proved to be very difficult; understandably so due to the
transformation that local authorities underwent since 2002 together with their focus to deliver on eradicating the
backlog in basic services
especially for the poor and neglecting the operational management side of the ongoing
water business.
The situation has been exacerbated by the loss of skilled municipal technical personnel together with their
institutional knowledge and information.
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4
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Available Infrastructure Information
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Municipalities have the constitutional responsibility to provide effective and sustainable water services to all
people and businesses in their area of jurisdiction. It is therefore a logical business requirement of municipalities to
know where all water services infrastructure is located, what the condition and what the functionality of the
infrastructure is
and how effective it is delivering water services to its customers. Unfortunately, this information is
not readily available and municipalities need to undertake significant field work to establish the necessary
knowledge base.
The Department of Water Affairs maintained water services infrastructure records in all the projects that they were
responsible
for since 1994 and developed a Reference Framework data base of bulk water supply infrastructure. It
also facilitated the national roll-out of Water Services Development Plans (WSDP) per Water Services Authority
(WSA), which provides some insight into key infrastructure information at municipal level. To support municipal
services, the DWA recently
initiated a Water Master Planning programme which will investigate and record the
existing and planned water supply infrastructure in more detail.
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5
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Intervention action plan
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From the analysis of 1 689 water supply schemes on the department’s database 12% of the existing schemes are
experiencing extensive functionality problems in that for long periods of time no water is flowing out of the water
taps.
Based on the analysis of interruptions per scheme, the report recommends 3
priority groupings to be selected for
more detailed investigative work which will include site inspection to validate the theoretical approach to the
solving of the functionality problems. The three priority groupings are:
? Priority-1: 66 schemes having an average interruption above 80%
? Priority-2: 114 schemes with
an average interruption between 60% and 80%,and
? Priority-3: 188 schemes with average interruptions between 40% and 60%
Above priority schemes will be investigated to determine the most likely causes for functionality failures. This will
be based on the following spatial analysis inferences drawn from the Stats SA interruption
data:
? If all wards (or EAs) within a scheme have the same level of interruption, it indicates that the functionality
problem is most likely at the water source, water treatment works or bulk water supply (e.g. water board)
? If wards (or EAs) differ within the scheme, but show clusters
of similar levels of interruption, it could
indicate a problem at specific supply zones and relate to a pump station or reservoir feeding that zone
? If wards (or EAs) differ within supply zones and no specific pattern is observed, it is most likely that the
problem resides with the
water reticulation (e.g. burst pipe; illegal connection; disconnection due to non-
payment)
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6
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Intervention actions
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The report recommends strategic areas for intervention actions which include the following. These will be
developed in more detail by the Water Master Plans to follow:
? Intervention area 1: Strategic and tactical approach
? Intervention area 2: Improved Governance
? Intervention area 3: Application of Business Principles and Approaches
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Intervention area 4: Ownership and obligations
? Intervention area 5: Improve existing programmes and interventions
? Intervention area 6: “New” interventions
? Intervention area 7: Institutional and management capacity
? Intervention area 8: Improve culture, approach and attitude
? Intervention area 9: Financial
? Intervention area 10: Enabling support
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7
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Conclusions
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From the work undertaken, the following key issues, principles and requirements can be concluded:
? Water Services is comprehensive and complex business
? South Africa has an extensive spatial coverage of infrastructure
? Infrastructure and associated delivery in “critical/serious” state, with serious political, security, social,
economic and environmental risks/impacts
? Serious
management and delivery challenges
? Extensive interventions but inadequate
? Resource challenges (institutional & financial)
? Inappropriate and ineffective management approaches applied
? Inter-departmental cooperation and involvement challenges
? Comprehensive knowledge base, but incomplete
Considering the extent and severity of the functionality problems in South Africa, the evaluation tools
and
techniques discussed in this report can give much needed guidance to address the most critical schemes in a
focused and hands-on manner.
Clearly the functionality challenges being experienced in South Africa are not unique. The country has indeed
achieved a lot in rolling out infrastructure to provide services to
those that were previously excluded. However, we
are not immune to the lack of infrastructure maintenance and asset management which leads to functionality
problems of existing infrastructure.
What can be taken from the experience of other countries is that there is unlikely to be a single intervention that
will result
in a solution. The complexity and inter-relatedness of 1) hardware (infrastructure), 2) the environment and 3)institutional considerations must be considered in exploring solutions.
To achieve change in South Africa, it is essential that all sector role players acknowledge the criticality of
infrastructure functionality in South Africa and recognise the importance
of infrastructure asset management to
address the systemic problems and inhibitors of this performance area. Awareness of the problem and
understanding of the solution is not enough to effect change. It will be necessary to implement a comprehensive
management and governance programme to guide, regulate and audit the infrastructure asset
management
processes.
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