How is creating a new SOE going to fix SA’s water problems?

When you think about South Africa, I’m sure, like all of us, you think what the country needs is another state-owned entity (SOE). And in his infinite, glorious wisdom, our captain responded to the country’s cries! Woo-hoo, we’re getting a National Water Resources Infrastructure SOC.

To be fair, this does come from parliament and has been coming for a few years, but let’s check the state of affairs that this aims to address.

The Department of Water and Sanitation has obliged us with a report detailing that 51% of water has poor to bad microbiological quality. Non-revenue water losses are 47.4%. More than 40% of water is lost due to leaks or otherwise unaccounted for. More than 65% of treatment plants are under-effective. We also have 24 water service authorities which did not present audit reports for 2023.

It’s not a brilliant picture, and I guess we should be grateful that there’s even some kind of proposed intervention. But is this the intervention we need? Have we not been disappointed by the performance of state-owned entities for a while? Mabena, please disappoint me again!

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Who appoints the governmental department officials? Who appoints the SOE officials? Is it the same people? Maybe there are some checks and balances differences here and there. In any event, have they had a track record of working?

One needs to do a little bit of legal gymnastics to infer a right to electricity, but when it comes to water, it’s right there in the Bill of Rights – everybody has a right to access sufficient food and water. Granted, it doesn’t say that the water needs to be clean so we can enjoy a lovely sigh of relief about that 51% poor to bad quality stuff.

And that further demand of the “state must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of … these rights”? We can’t say that they’re not doing anything. After all, they went to all that legislative effort to set up a whole company. That’s something, right? Right?

Now you have to ask: If the results don’t improve, shouldn’t the company be shut down? For all the talk of this intervention and increased accountability, there doesn’t appear to be much accountability.

How is it that the system got so broken? How is it that the president can stand up and decry a water emergency with no mea culpa. Who’s been in charge of water in the country for the last couple of years? Lesotho’s answer to King Arthur’s Lady of the Lake?

When the emperor has no clothes, putting on a jacket doesn’t really help because we’ve already seen them naked. It’s now time to go to the gym; stomach in, chest out! Actually, getting the work done is what’s needed, not setting up another entity to not do the work.

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Perhaps this SOE will actually function. Hopefully, it will change the perception of SOEs for the better by being effective and making our water system more functional. I don’t know. All I know is that the functioning of the country’s SOEs in recent memory doesn’t leave me with much hope.

One thing we must appreciate is that water has become more accessible and readily available to so many more people. It doesn’t mean that we have to accept poor water. It doesn’t mean that we should accept that buying 5-litre bottles should be a norm. It doesn’t mean that we should accept that a whole industry of clean drinking water has formed in the last decade.

It may seem elitist to say that in the cities, we never had water quality problems under Thabo Mbeki. There’s no reason why we can’t expect good quality water in the cities and beyond, collectively.

When things were working, letting them break down and blaming expansion is no way forward.

Give us an SOE, fine. But make it work. Don’t expect it to just come right just because you’ve moved responsibility from a government department to a government company—because then nobody will be surprised when E. coli comes knocking.

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