Africa-Press – South-Africa. The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) is proposing that Johannesburg Water become a fully-fledged water service provider if the city’s persistent water woes are going to be stemmed.
Parliament’s portfolio committee on Tuesday heard that four billion rand had been siphoned from the entity by the Joburg city council, leaving no money for much-needed maintenance and repair of its infrastructure.
Joburg residents have been enduring weeks of intermittent water supply as its ailing reservoirs struggle to keep up with demand.
The water and sanitation department told Parliament that it was not through a lack of funding from national government that many of the country’s municipalities were experiencing water supply problems but rather the way in which the money was being spent.
Director-General Sean Phillips, who’s part of the Joburg Presidential Working Group, said at the heart of the city’s water troubles was the way in which Joburg Water was funded.
“Unfortunately, with the financial difficulties faced by the city, the city has swept more than four billion rand out of Joburg Water accounts and not put it back and this has resulted in the situation where many of those contracts have come to a halt because contractors have not been paid.”
Phillips said that ideally, Joburg Water should be responsible for its own billing and revenue collection and have sole control over its budget.
“It gets a budget from the city, and the city, in terms of its policies, can take money out of the accounts of the various entities that have a surplus, to fund deficits of entities.”
Deputy Minister David Mahlobo said that by water revenue going into the city’s coffers instead of Joburg Water, it was causing an infrastructure investment shortfall of over three billion rand a year, with less than a billion rand invested annually.
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