GOVERNANCE & FUNDING
SYSTEMIC CORRUPTION IN THE WATER SECTOR Katse Dam, part of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project
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A new report released by the Water Integrity Network and Corruption Watch has highlighted widespread corruption in South Africa’s water sector.
he report, authored by Mike Muller and titled Money down the Drain: corruption in South Africa’s water sector, states that South Africa’s significant water challenges are aggravated by corruption, whose impact can be measured in dry taps, lost jobs, polluted rivers and those who have fallen ill as a result of unsafe drinking water and inadequate sanitation. “Corruption in the water sector has resulted in deaths,” the report dramatically claims, which highlights problems such as bribes, irregular awarding of tenders, poor quality work and collusion. “Corruption in the water sector is systemic; the formal rules have been superseded by informal rules that bypass or distort formal processes. The solution to this is not simply strengthening the formal rules. If the underlying driver is political – for example, securing political party funding or securing political power – which appears to be the case in some instances, strategies to address it must be different from where the main driver is personal financial gain,” states the report. To this end, it identifies several corruption strategies, including:
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• manipulation of procurement and operational processes • influencing policy and regulatory decisions • taking control of the decision-making sites of key institutions.
Cases of corruption
The report claims that corruption in the water sector is systemic, involving people from the lowest to highest levels, with many private businesses benefiting richly. Examples range from corruption in the supply of water by road tankers and the provision of temporary toilets, to the systematic looting of large-scale construction contracts intended to develop water resources and ensure water security for the country. A finger is pointed at former Minister of Water and Sanitation Nomvula Mokonyane, as corruption appears to have blossomed during her tenure from 2014 to 2018. Although corruption was already a problem in the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) prior to Mokonyane’s tenure, it had been at a smaller scale, with the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) reporting 28 criminal cases
involving R50 million. However, by the time Mokonyane left, irregular expenditure was well over R4 billion, with new cases still being uncovered and the DWS effectively bankrupt. One of the projects highlighted is the much-publicised Giyani Water Project. The Auditor General’s office told Parliament that there had been R2.2 billion in irregular expenditure on the project because contracts had been awarded irregularly. Furthermore, the DWS said that it would cost R10 billion to complete the project and bring water to all the people in this small town and its more than 90 surrounding villages. Another project that has received media attention is the long-overdue Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), which supplies water to the Gauteng region and generates hydro-electricity for Lesotho. The report argues that, in the 1990s, the first phase of the project provided a textbook case of corruption in large public sector construction projects. One consequence of the corruption in Phase 1A of the LHWP is that substantial efforts were made to avoid further corruption in Phase 2 – the construction
