of work in water and sanitation OVER HALF A CENTURY

Neil Macleod has received the highest possible honour that can be given by WISA – the WISA Honorary Member Award. Kirsten Kelly talks to Macleod about his 50-year career, lessons learned and his opinions on the water and sanitation sector.

How did your career begin in water and sanitation?

NM Having grown up in KwaZuluNatal, I spent a great deal of my time playing in water as a child, and this piqued my interest. My late father was the city engineer at the old Durban Municipality, with a focus on sewerage. I received a bursary from the city to study a civil engineering degree, where upon completion, I would have to work for the city for four years. Many of my major subjects revolved around water and I was therefore placed within the water department’s design office as a young engineer.

After a few years, I became a little restless and took up a position to manage the field staff and people who operated the utilities within the water department. While some people at the time saw this move as a ‘backward step’, it taught me some invaluable lessons:

• A successful engineer cannot only stick to design, it is important to run systems, operate and maintain them, as well as build or supervise the construction of infrastructure. This will only improve your future designs.

• At the time, I was a terrible manager. While I was technically competent, I had difficulty in adapting my management style to suit a particular person. This then prompted me to study an MBA.

Honorary Membership is handed to exceptional water sector professionals in recognition of their outstanding contribution to WISA and/or the water sector and society. It remains at the WISA board’s discretion and was originally conferred on the founders of WISA. Since its inception in 1987, WISA has only given out 21 Honorary Member Awards – before Neil, the last one was received by the late Professor Chris Buckley.

I did the MBA part time, and that was gruelling because I was a newly married man with a young family and a demanding job. However, that MBA changed my life and outlook on engineering. I learned that there is more to engineering than the technical. There is also strategy, law, finance, people, the environment and project management.

In the early 1990s, politics drastically changed how Durban city was structured. Business units were created and people with business skills were required to head these different units. I was then given the job to create a business unit that delivers water and sanitation to the people and prepare for post 1994.

In 1996, the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality was created when 38 municipalities were amalgamated. I was then given a contract to head up the new metro’s eThekwini Water and Sanitation corporatised entity (EWS). It was recognised that these services needed to be delivered in a businesslike manner and so the relevant procurement, finance, HR, IT, fleet and customer management functions were decentralised into EWS. This transition posed many management challenges.

On a personal note, running a utility with over 3 000 staff members and a budget over R6.5 billion is very stressful. I was on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Another challenge (and it remains a challenge) was that water and sanitation are politically charged. However, when I headed EWS, I received massive support from the mayor of eThekwini Municipality. He was in office for 15 years, he was a businessman, and had an MBA. He sorted out the politics, worked on policy and ensured that I implemented that policy. There was political stability during my time at the helm of the EWS – unlike some of the coalitions in municipalities today.

What are some of the highlights of your career?

• Free basic water

At the time, there were over a million people living in the metro without access to water and sanitation services. Many parts of the metro had been neglected, with minimal or no municipal services and low payment rates for these services. There was (and still is) a lot of poverty and disconnecting people from water for non-payment was not an option.

I therefore introduced the concept of free basic water, where a single household was allowed up to 6 k ℓ of water a month for free. After a visit to the metro by President Thabo Mbeki, free basic water was implemented nationwide. However, there was a mistake that was made. I consulted residents as well as the World Health Organization (WHO), and calculated that the average household needed 6 k ℓ of water a month, based on 25 litres per person per day and an average poor family size of eight. But years later, many people claimed that 6 k ℓ was not enough water for them to survive, particularly families living with HIV. When the WHO was consulted again, they stated that 25 litres per person would be suitable for temperate climates but 50 litres per person is better suited to hot climates like South Africa. This was corrected in eThekwini Municipality, but unfortunately national government still uses 25 litres.

Initially everyone had free basic water, but after some time, this was only given to the poor. Ironically, free basic water greatly improved revenue collection, as strong credit action could be taken against non-payers using more than the free basic amount.

• Other awards

Often described as the Nobel Prize of Water, the Stockholm Industry Water Award honours outstanding water achievements. EWS is the only utility in Africa that has received this award. I was fortunate enough to travel to Stockholm to accept the award and retired that same year (2014).

A year later, Water and Wastewater International rated me as one of the top 25 water leaders in the world. This year, I have also received an Engineering Excellence Award from the World Federation of Engineering Organisations.

I am an Honorary Fellow of the Institution of Municipal Engineering of Southern Africa (IMESA) and the South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE) (where I served as president in 2007). I am also a Fellow of the International Water Association (IWA) and the South African Academy of Engineering (SAAE), where I am currently the president.

What advice would you give to a young professional in the water sector?

Broaden your experience within a specialised field. Do not be a geotechnical engineer and a roads engineer and a water engineer; pick a specialisation, and then expose yourself to every aspect of that business. Do not stay in the design office – go and observe or get involved with the operations and construction.

Engineers also need to be managers, so invest in improving your management skills. And please, don’t leave the engineering profession. Banks and corporates love engineers because they are problem-solvers who think strategically, but your profession needs you.

I would recommend getting an MBA. It teaches the soft skills that an engineering degree does not provide. One must have a set of financial skills to motivate technical decisions or designs to a board or government. The phrase ‘trust me, I am an engineer’ will never suffice.

If you could grant the water and sanitation sector one wish, what would it be?

• For South Africa

Most of the problems within this sector are caused by bad management. I would therefore wish for a cohort of 200 competent water and sanitation provider managers that have a broad set of skills and can efficiently and effectively run all the water services authorities. I believe that competent people make wise business decisions and can push against political decisions that do not benefit the community they serve.

• For the world

To get rid of the ‘yuck factor’. I wish for a sanitation solution that uses no or a very small amount of water and can recover valuable nutrients and energy on the side. This would mean that wastewater treatment plants would only need to treat the residual chemical oxygen demand (COD) and microbiology, as the nutrients would be removed at source. The energy footprint of wastewater treatment plants and cost of the sewage pipelines would be reduced. I would like everyone (rich and poor) to have the same type of toilet.

What changes will we see in the water sector over the coming years?

The Reinvent the Toilet Challenge will gain more traction and there will be vast changes in sanitation technology.

Humans excrete phosphorous (a finite resource mined from rock) and nitrogen daily.

We cannot continue to flush nitrogen and phosphorous (that is used in agriculture) and litres of potable water (a scarce resource that is expensive to treat) down a toilet.

Water finance will continue to challenge and result in a change in existing tariff structures. Water and sanitation service provision will be managed as a business.

The circular economy will play a greater role in all water and sanitation projects and operations.

Climate change was seldom mentioned a decade ago, but it has become a driver and key consideration when designing new infrastructure and implementing water resource management.

The world is moving towards decentralisation. Decentralised water and sanitation solutions will continue to grow in popularity.

Digitalisation and artificial intelligence will continue to positively contribute towards the sector.

I also predict that our local sector will be restructured. It is simply not viable to have over 140 water services authorities, –I believe that number will be reduced.

I am still working, mainly consulting for the World Bank, and the National Treasury Cities Support Programme, mostly focusing on turnaround strategies for water utilities. I have also been interacting with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from 2009 regarding the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge, as well as Borda with decentralised sanitation systems, and Sanergy in Kenya with the sanitation value chain.

I am extremely fortunate to have had an incredible career, and remain passionate about ensuring that everyone has access to clean water and a safe environment. As an engineer, it is impossible to be bored when working in the water and sanitation space. Water and sanitation services have a profound impact on people’s lives and it is an honour and privilege to play a part in that.