By: Mlungisi Johnson
Displaying her talents at being a ‘political mud slinger’, DA MO Emma Powell is at it again. She is making an idiotic effort to paint the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) Advisory Committee as a group of overpaid political appointees whose work was to rake up huge salaries and transportation bills, allegedly, to fund Sisulu’s presidential bid. Proof of which she (Powell) has not.
The abnormal conduct can only be normal from a political entity which is led by a great twelve leader (academically), with poorly guided followers like Powel.
Have you ever seen a dog barking at a stationary car? A dog only barks at a moving car and this explains why Powell has been on the case of Minister Lindiwe.
This is because Minister Sisulu has performed in her portfolio, beyond the expectation, especially around the fight against corruption and at times at the risk of interfering in the COGTA terrain of reticulation.
The latest brazen rhetoric across various media platforms by the DA’s Deputy Shadow Minister, Powell about the recently disbanded Water and Sanitation Advisory Committee is the newest smear attempt by the DA.
Their aim is to explain away the commendable work done by the panel and obscure from the public, how the panel performed: exceptional. Facts I believe have caught the DA team by surprise. Powell should tell us, whether she is afraid of black excellence?
By the time Minister Sisulu was appointed as the new Minister of Human Settlements, Water, and Sanitation on the 29th of May 2019, she had inherited a department that had developed a reputation for fraud, corruption, and procurement irregularities.
Realizing the mammoth task of not only running two huge departments of Human Settlement, and Water and Sanitation, but that of resuscitating the Department of Water and Sanitation, which was at the brink of bankruptcy; the very experienced Minister Sisulu immediately kicked into overdrive planning and collating teams that were going to help her achieve her goal of rooting out corruption and repairing the Department of Water and Sanitation.
One such team was the DWS Panel of Advisory Committee.
The Committee was established on 1 April 2020, under section S76 Water Services Act (Act No. 108 of 1997). The Act states that:
Advisory committees
76. (1) The Minister may appoint advisory committees for matters falling within the scope of this Act.
(2) An advisory committee consists of a chairperson and such members as the Minister may determine, with due regard to the expertise required,
(3) A member of an advisory committee may be paid an allowance determined by the Minister.
(4) An advisory committee has the functions conferred on it by the Minister.
The main objectives of the Water and Sanitation Advisory Team were to advise the Minister and intervene by the directives of the Minister on:
a. The right of access to basic water supply and the right to basic sanitation necessary to secure sufficient water within an environment not harmful to human health or wellbeing;
b. The setting of national standards and norms for tariffs in respect of water supply and sanitation services;
c. The preparation and adoption of water supply and services development plans by water services authorities;
d. A regulatory framework for water services institutions and water services intermediaries;
e. The monitoring and where necessary interventions with regards to water services institutions.
As of August 2021, the Advisory Committee consisted of eight-panel members who were proficient in the fields of Engineering, Finance, Communication, Politics and policies, Community engagement among others things. A water and wastewater treatment engineer, Dr. Michele Kruger, led the Committee and was deputized by Mphumzi Mdekazi.
Dr. Kruger is a phenomenal woman who is hardworking and fervently passionate about designing solutions for health and dignity. Mdekazi dealt successfully with almost all corruption investigations that he was dealing with. We were well-led. He might have been disappointed by law enforcement agencies.
The Committee’s contracts have been renewed once, in April 2021. According to the contracts signed by the individual members, their remuneration was considered as below:
7.1 Remuneration
7.1.1 The Member, who has been appointed outside the Public Service prescripts, will be remunerated in line with the DPSA hourly fee rates for consultants that are appointed on a long-term basis (more than 60 consulting days) with no mark-up (column B 2.2), for actual hours worked, and payable on submission of monthly claims with relevant reports on services rendered.
In the course of their work, the Committee would from time to time as well as depending on the need, meet, read and write reports and advisory notes, visit various sites, amongst many other things.
Some of the Committee’s written works include:
1. Writing of the first draft of the Sanitation Master plan.
2. Understanding the WSA challenges and identifying hotspots in worst serviced provinces
3. S63 Intervention Proposal for the Vaal
4. Annual report analysis of Water Boards – especially on those with very poor performance
5. Bucket Eradication
6. The Water Sustainability Program
7. Given the lack of finances within the DHWS in addressing the backlog of water and sanitation, private sector financing was canvassed successfully
8. Functionality of Waste Water Treatment Plants was identified for urgent intervention, especially for operation and maintenance
On top of these written reports, the committee also prepared numerous video reports in the form of documentaries and feature films, some of which have been published on the Departments’ websites.
The video reports cover topics such as:
− The state of water & sanitation around the country.
− Community engagements in areas affected by either water or sanitation.
− Drought in parts of South Africa
− Corruption in the water sector
− Positive and sometimes untold stories of the DWS.
Apart from working on collective projects like the ones shown above, each of the members would from time to time be assigned tasks by the Minister, which they had to perform, and issue reports as was required. This goes to show that this committee worked tirelessly to not only achieve its objectives but to go above and beyond its call of duty.
The committee’s latest work, to which we conceptualized and helped to painstakingly create a blueprint, was the DWS intervention at the Vaal. The Committee not only proposed how the intervention should take place, but it ensured that all the i’s were dotted and t’s crossed to the point of cabinet approval. Please note that this was the first time that DWS had even considered a Section 63 intervention, a decision that was beginning to have a positive impact on Emfuleni residents.
Besides bringing about the much-needed cleaning of the Vaal River, it is set to open up opportunities for development in the area.
Just before the latest cabinet reshuffle, the committee was involved in helping the Department in monitoring and evaluating the various pillars of the Vaal intervention, created for easy monitoring and evaluation. The committee was in the process of organizing a site tour to take stock of what was done and what still needs to be done on the ground. They were equally working closely with various stakeholders such as Rand Water to ease their working relationship with DWS.
Led by Dr. Kruger, the committee also worked on a document to reintroduce the Blue and Green drop projects, which is to conduct 963 green drop assessments of Waste Water Treatment plants and regulations to strengthen compliance to legislation by municipalities. It is important to note that there was no budget for this program in the previous three years, but due to the efforts of this committee and Minister Sisulu, this important program was reignited.
It would have been ingenious for the DA to not only waive around receipts of the committee’s expenses and salaries but also give the journalists and the public, a blow-by-blow account of what these receipts stand for and what the committee has done for South Africans.
It is imperative that the public notes that, Minister Sisulu delivered Module Six to the residents of the Vaal. This Module is addressing and catering to the growing population and development of the area. Module Six was to increase Sebokeng’s capacity from 100M/Lday to 200M/Lday, thus assisting to ease the hydraulic overload of Sebokeng WWTW. Deputy President David Mabuza praised this initiative by Minister Sisulu when he conducted an oversight visit to the area on 23 March 2021.
Her efforts and commitment were seen when she had to step in and deliver water tanks across the country when the responsible sector, the local government had failed to perform their mandates.
Minister Sisulu’s Command Center at Rand Water was even praised by President Cyril Ramaphosa when he visited and was taken through the operations in 2020.
Through her efforts, she managed to turn around most of the water-boards. Mhlatuze has clean audits; Magalies has improved focus, performance, and audits; confronting the malice in Sedibeng Water and even bringing in a new CEO; bringing in Sipho Mosai to Rand Water and confronting the challenges in Bloem Water: talk about commitment to service delivery.
Is the DA persecuting Minister Sisulu because she is vocal about the lack of change in black communities since the advent of democracy? Most importantly, the DA continues to be anti-transformation as Minister Sisulu was hell-bent on seeing black service providers participating in large projects within DHWS.
I am raising all the above because as a legislator myself I was aware of Minister Sisulu’s efforts in cleaning up that Department of Water and Sanitation and therefore feel obliged that I should attest to what I have witnessed with my eyes. So the attempts to subvert and erode her legacy and pretend as if nothing was done is tantamount to counter-revolution.
*Mlungisi Johnson is a former Portfolio Committee Chairperson of Water and Sanitation in Parliament as well as the former ANCYL President.
He writes in his own personal capacity
