Johannesburg - The lives of millions of people grappling with the lack of water and sanitation services could be improved if municipalities and government departments spent their services budgets appropriately.
The Department of Water and Sanitation allocates municipalities millions of rand every year that it expects will be used to provide services in rural communities and informal settlements.
Studies in Poverty and Inequality Institute researcher Matshidiso Motsoeneng has found serious examples of underspending and poor service provision.
In a working paper, Motsoeneng says policy gaps and administrative inefficiencies are denying people their right to water and sanitation.
In many cases, money intended for water and sanitation is being spent on other things.
“Allocation and spending patterns, including poor performance and allocation of the funds intended for the provision of the right to water and sanitation, are linked to some of the systemic failures in budgeting and governance,” Motsoeneng said this week when the report was released.
“There seems to be insufficient capacity in the water and sanitation sector, including implementing agencies, (which face) challenges in attracting and retaining personnel with the necessary managerial and technical skills.”
The local government equitable share provided by the department accounted for 63 percent of the total allocation in the 2014/15 budget.
“(It is) transferred to subsidise the provision of basic services (such as) free basic water, and sanitation,refuse and (free basic) energy.
“Although municipalities have a high discretion on how they spend (the money), the Division of Revenue Act transfers are accompanied by recommendations.”
Even when the money was used for other things, the local government authorities underspent the amounts they budgeted for water and sanitation.
Much of the municipal water infrastructure grant - earmarked for projects to eradicate backlogs in water and sanitation, especially in 24 problematic municipalities - had also remained unspent in the past two financial years.
Despite this, it was expected the department would increase the budget to R3 billion for the next financial year, from R108m in 2014/15.
There are similar problems with the rural household infrastructure grant, established in 2011 to help municipalities reduce service backlogs in rural areas and to contribute to job creation and economic development.
The amount allocated for the grant had fluctuated significantly, from R122m in 2010/11, to R379m in 2012/13, and R113m in 2014/15.
“The fluctuation is linked to poor performance and underspending, which have been features since the grant’s inception,” the report said.
On average, 32 percent remained unspent, but in 2014/15 as much as 80 percent had not been used.
“It is clear underspending prevents responsible departments from achieving their objectives in providing sanitation services to rural communities.”
The study also detailed how the problem existed on a broader level, illustrated, for example, by the declining number of civil engineers.
The number of civil engineering professionals to every 100 000 people had declined significantly, from 20 in 1994 to three at the time of the study.
The department had struggled to fill vacancies, Motsoeneng said.
The capacity challenges seemed to be even more pressing in municipalities mandated to provide water and sanitation services.
Activist Peter Banda has expressed dismay at the conditions people are living in because they cannot access water and sanitation, although receiving these services is a constitutional right.
Banda said residents had protested, asking how his municipality in the North West had been allowed to get away with using water and sanitation funds for other things.
“I had a tap for five years, but there’s no drop of water I have seen from that tap. I was forced to take a huge loan to dig a borehole, and so did my neighbours.
“This is the kind of pressure we have. This is a key area where the issue of health is at stake, so it extends to other basic needs.
“We are unable to go forward; we are not being entertained by the authorities on the diversion of funds that are constitutionally allocated to our interest.”
At the report’s launch, researchers discussed how the failure to upgrade infrastructure led to serious problems, such as 70 percent of rural Limpopo's water being lost before it reached the tap.
Some Limpopo residents have had to resort to buying water while unspent millions are returned to the National Treasury, to their detriment.
There are 3.9 million indigent households that are not receiving free basic water and sanitation services.
Motsoeneng said the National Treasury had calculated the local government equitable share for 2016/17 for 9.2 million poor households. However, municipalities had reported that only 5.3 million households had been receiving services.
Informal settlement residents, like Axolile Notywala of the Social Justice Coalition in Cape Town, struggle with the perception that “informal” homes are temporary structures and warrant limited services.
“One of the biggest problems is that informal settlements are seen as temporary settlements. People who have lived 20 to 25 years there are seen as being temporary.
“This is going to continue and in the next 30 to 40 years, people who don’t have toilets now are still going to be living in informal settlements. There needs to be a shift in focusing only on housing and not on basic services.”
Labour Bureau