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dam-l Managerial competence crucial to water deliv./LS
>14 May 1999 Financial Mail
>MANAGERIAL COMPETENCE VITAL TO WATER DELIVERY
>
>
>
>One of the ANC-led government's proudest boasts is that it has supplied
>clean water to 3m rural people since it came to power in 1994, thereby
>reducing the proportion of South Africans who do not have access to safe
>water from a third of the population to a fifth.
>Its boast has now been challenged by a front-page report in Sunday World
>under the headline: "Asmal's Disaster". The report states that half of
>government's water projects are in disarray and that about 1,5m people
>have returned to unprotected water sources. It blames poor planning by
>government - meaning, presumably, Kader Asmal's Department of Water
>Affairs & Forestry - and its failure to break the culture of nonpayment.
>
>The report does not say that a major proportion of its information is
>gleaned from a conference organised by the department to help it monitor
>the water projects and, where necessary, to take action to remedy
>deficiencies. Thus, far from pretending that its projects have been
>totally successful, the department has sought independent assessment at
>conference open to the media.
>
>Mvula Trust, a nongovernmental organisation which participated in the
>conference and which was commissioned by the department to study the
>sustainability of its water projects, distances itself from the
>conclusions reached in the Sunday World report. It states, first, that the
>projects investigated were selected because they were known to have
>problems; and, second, that it is therefore incorrect to say that most of
>the people served by the department's programme are no better off than
>they were in 1994.
>
>But, critically, the department does not deny that there are problems. One
>is that responsibility for the supply of water is now a local government
>function. If local government institutions falter - and they have,
>especially in rural areas - water provision is adversely affected. Another
>is the longevity of the culture of nonpayment. Management, as the FM
>pointed out in an editorial last week, remains an important challenge for
>the ANC government.
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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