Stalled water projects mean conditional grants cannot be released

uMzinyathi District Municipality does not have enough skilled employees to maintain its water infrastructure, according to Mayor Thembisile Mchunu.

Earlier this month, GroundUp reported on the daily fight for water endured by residents. Municipal water services have all but collapsed, leaving residents to rely on boreholes and private water tankers. More than a dozen water infrastructure projects have stalled, and the municipality has spent millions on companies contracted to supply water with trucks.

"The recent internal skills and competence research revealed that these workers are not fit," said Mchunu at a Water Summit held in Dundee on 16 and 17 October.

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Sizwe Ngubane, the municipality's Head of Technical Services, said the lack of qualified personnel is one of the main reasons for the backlog in maintenance.

The municipality is due hundreds of millions of rand in conditional grants meant for water infrastructure. But the funds cannot be disbursed because of the municipality's large number of unfinished projects, said Bongiwe Msani, the KwaZulu-Natal operations director for the Department of Water and Sanitation.

National COGTA Minister, Velinkosi Hlabisa, said the municipality's R1.4-billion in fruitless expenditure was a "lost opportunity." "This budget could have drilled boreholes for every household in the district," Hlabisa said.

Delegates at the summit, from the local, provincial and national governments, resolved to make renewed efforts to ensure boreholes are drilled in every ward. An indigent register would also be created to determine who should be required to pay for water.