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Summit TV Face to Face
30 April 2008
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Presenter: Welcome to Face to Face.
We’ve had a lot of issues with electricity supply - people are
saying “what about other major infrastructural supply issues
like water for example?” We can do without electricity for an
evening - but can we do without water? With me to talk about
this ism two gentlemen very much involved with water. One is
Keith Naicker Chief Operating Officer at Rand Water, and
Leonardo Manus of the Department of Water Affairs. Lets start
with you Keith. Johannesburg is in an unnatural situation - we
know that its the only major city in the world not on a natural
water source, that’s because of gold of course - but we’ve been
well supplied over the years. Issues are now coming up -
pollution, security of supply, lots of development - can we
supply all this development? First let’s talk about water
quality - then we can go on to the infrastructure…
Keith Naicker: If you look at water provision in the
greater Johannesburg area - which includes a large part of
Gauteng - Rand Water is one of the largest water boards in the
country providing water to these areas. Firstly, the source of
our water is essentially the Vaal Dam, which gets its water from
Lesotho - and the quality of that water is really pristine.
Apart from that Rand Water looks at its water quality standard -
which is the SANS 0241 - which is essentially based on World
Health Organisation standards, and it’s benchmarked with the EU
standard, the US standard as well as the Australian standard. So
the quality of water that is provided to what you call the
Johannesburg area is essentially amongst the best in the world.
The second issue is that there is a lot of pollution in terms of
source waters - but this is largely downstream from the Vaal
Dam. Rand Water does not abstract its water from downstream of
the Vaal Dam - we do it from the Vaal Dam. Downstream of the
Vaal Dam I think the Department of Water Affairs is actually
doing a lot of good work with municipalities to try and control
the standard effluent discharge. The third important issue to
bear in mind is that people have been equating water supply with
the electricity crisis. I think that is a very unfair
comparison. If I talk for Rand Water we’ve done a lot to ensure
that our long-term planning needs are in place. We have what we
call the Annual Infrastructure Development Plan which looks
every year 20 years hence - together with the Department of
Water Affairs and Forestry we do our demand plans and
projections, and based on those demand plans and projections we
provide adequate infrastructure for water supply. For example we
are currently busy with a phase of investment infrastructure
which will be completed in September 2008. Come September 2008
once we have finished all our work we have adequate
infrastructure to supply water for the next 15 years - and our
annual infrastructure development plan takes care of what
happens beyond 15 years.
Presenter: With Eskom one of the problems we know now -
and Eskom admits it - was maintenance. Are you not in that
situation? Has the infrastructure been maintained as it should
have been?
Keith Naicker: We have been doing a lot of infrastructure
maintenance…
Presenter: That’s not quite the answer to the question -
is it what it should be?
Keith Naicker: It is what it should be. We are actually
spending in excess of R7 billion over the next five years on
both augmentation and maintenance - so we have sufficient
investment in maintenance, and our maintenance is above board
and at the standard where it should be.
Presenter: Was there a period where it wasn’t?
Keith Naicker: No.
Presenter: So we can be assured about the supply - that
not only is the water coming, but it’s going to get to us in
terms of pipes…
Keith Naicker: You will have enough water to drink
- whether you will be able to see it without electricity is
another story - but we certainly will have enough water.
Presenter: Leonardo, that’s very reassuring from a
Gauteng point of view - from a national point of view one hears
stories about effluents, industrial pollution, sewerage getting
into the works, not enough maintenance everywhere, and certainly
some local authorities that appear not to have the capacity or
money to keep up the facilities - so we read of towns
occasionally where the dams aren’t able to supply the water
because they haven’t been maintained.
Leonardo Manus: There’s a whole host of issues you
mentioned there - I think it would be fair to split them all.
The first if you look at effluent quality, yes definitely we
would say we won’t be giving the reassuring message that
everything is fine. Everything is definitely not fine there.
That’s why we would like to say “is it a looming crisis?” Well,
if it’s looming still - then we’ve got the opportunity to fix
it. The fact is that the Department of Water Affairs would like
to fix their attention at this point in time the areas - it’s
not everywhere, but there where we’ve identified there are
problematic areas. If you move on to the drinking water quality
side you cannot link the two directly - because definitely we
don’t regard our raw water as drinking water sources at this
point in time, where people would just go and get drinking water
from. If people are doing that they are not being served yet -
they are part of the backlog, and we should then get them
serviced. In terms of the drinking water generally the picture
looks very good - it’s quite something to say that our annual
statement on drinking water quality is very similar to that of
Canada as a country, where we are saying we’ve got great trust
in our drinking water quality management as you’ve just heard
from Keith as well in our bigger cities and towns…
Presenter: It is an area where you could say unlike some
other areas of South African life it’s not enough to be good
most of the time - it’s not enough to say that 90% of towns or
households have water but the other 10% don’t - because it’s a
matter of life and death literally. Let’s take the quality issue
to something else - Keith from your point of view not only is
the quality good of the present infrastructure, looking at the
development in Gauteng and the number of people coming in - are
we going to have enough?
Keith Naicker: The issue for me is what veracity are we placing
on the planning that we do? The planning that we do is based on
three levels - one we work with the Department of Water Affairs
and Forestry, secondly we get growth projections from the
municipalities that we work in, and the third issue is that we
corroborate a lot of the information we get with independent
institutions. Based on that - taking into account the HIV/Aids
scenario, the migration of people into South Africa, as well as
the natural growth of our cities and towns - we believe that we
have adequate capacity for the next 15 to 20 years based both on
infrastructure and on quality and integrity to ensure that we
have sufficient water for our people.
Presenter: In 30 years time?
Keith Naicker: In 30 years time - that planning will be
done in the next five years. We look at 15 to 20 year blocks all
the time. Moving ahead we do that concurrently as the years go
out - so we actually have a moving planning horizon, moving into
the future of planning for our water supplies.
Presenter: Leonardo, have you got the capacity
nationally? I think it’s easier on a local level to look at
Umgeni Water, Rand Water and so on - you’ve got to look after
the whole lot. Have you got the capacity, the skills and
technical expertise to make sure that people who deserve water
and who are promised water will get it?
Leonardo Manus: We have the capacity in terms of
planning. We have a whole unit looking at that in terms of the
resource itself - looking at what we need to do to ensure that
we have enough storage capacity in the country. That planning is
being done…
Presenter: Do we at the moment have enough?
Leonardo Manus: Yes, we have - but we have to plan for
the future as well. In the future projections it gives another
picture - that’s why planning has to go on as Keith has said. In
terms of the people as it goes into their homes - we need to
actually upgrade even our own systems as well at a water
services level to service all these people with sufficient
water, so that is constantly being done. Our encouragement
though - if there’s one shortcoming that we have to acknowledge
is asset management. That is definitely a culture that we need
to create in this country. Not at all levels - at some levels
it’s perfect - but as you said earlier when you didn’t given me
an opportunity to finish we are looking at the 10%, we are
looking at that little bit that we are worried about. It’s there
that the attention is being given and focus is being given at
this point in time.
Keith Naicker: The important issue that we must address
and not shy away from is that one of the critical problems we
face in South Africa is skills and the retention of critical
skills - here I’m talking very specifically engineering and
scientific skills. There is such demand not only from South
Africa but internationally as well - so the challenge for
water-related utilities and institutions like the Department of
Water Affairs and the water boards is to make sure we retain the
skills. We are losing skills hand over fist…
Presenter: What are you doing about it?
Keith Naicker: At Rand Water we’ve put in place a
retention strategy, and we’re looking at investing in schools at
this time so as to ensure that children who are good at
mathematics and science are nurtured - we put them through a
programme at university, we bring them through to Rand Water for
vacation jobs - and hopefully we try and bring them into the
organisation with full time employment as we move along. We
believe you’ve got to start at the lower levels to nurture,
encourage and develop skills - and bring them into the
organisation so that they stay with us. But with things like the
2010 Soccer, Gautrain, and all the public works expenditure
that’s happening in the country there is such demand for
engineers and scientists that we are competing amongst a very
small pool in the country.
Presenter: Are you doing enough nationally to keep
skills?
Leonardo Manus: That’s two different stories. In the
National Department of Water Affairs we are trying - we are
following similar routes to retain skills within the Department
- however the greatest concern to us would be the level of
technical skills at local government level. That is a concern
for us. Obviously provincial and local government is facing this
problem as well, and they’re also putting a lot of money and
effort in to build capacity at a local level - but we need to
face the fact that we need more technical people, engineers,
technicians and technologists in South Africa. |
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