Business and training: Mike’s message
41
Doing the right thing at
the right time
By Mike Muller
Well, at least there has been some rain in Cape Town, although it
is far too early to tell what level of restrictions Capetonians will
have to endure in the coming summer.
My contribution to saving water in South Africa
was to spend a few weeks in Europe. But, as luck
would have it, I ended up having to deal with a small
plumbing problem in the flat where I was staying.
What the experience of both Cape Town and South
London has reminded me is how important it is
to do the right thing at the right time, whether it
involves household plumbing or supplying a city. As a
professional engineer and an academic with a mandate
to enquire, I have continued to probe and understand
what happened in Cape Town. A good record exists of
the process since 2007 when the Department of Water
and Sanitation published its ‘reconciliation strategy’ for
what it calls the Western Cape Water Supply System
(WCWSS). The WCWSS is the set of rivers, six dams,
tunnels, and pipelines that serve not just the city of
Cape Town, but also the regions from Saldanha all the
way through to Swellendam.
The story is simple — and this comes from the minutes
of the meetings. In 2007, the planners told the city and
national minister that once the Berg River Dam was
complete, new infrastructure would be needed by around
2015 to supply the growing population and economy.
But, Cape Town politicians said they would encourage
water saving and would not need anything before 2022.
Then, a succession of national ministers had other things
on their mind. By 2015, with a drought underway, Cape
Town finally realised that they had a problem. Yet, by the
time restrictions were introduced, the dams were less
than half full — not a good place to start.
www.plumbingafrica.co.za
So what about my flat’s plumbing? It was simple. An
antiquated toilet syphon had effectively rotted away and
needed to be replaced. However, the six-storey building,
constructed in the 1950s, had no stopcock for any of the
60 individual flats, just one for the entire building. The
plumber had to excavate into the wall to locate the pipe
so that he could freeze it shut, install an isolation valve,
and then fix the syphon.
In both cases, the problem was simple. If the city
authorities had simply taken the professional advice
they were given, they could have avoided the current
mess. Just why they chose to second-guess their
advisors is another matter. Reluctance to take advice
from a department run by another party was one
factor. Environmental lobbyists, who always (correctly)
preach that we must consider whether water use can
be reduced before we build infrastructure to increase
supply, was another.
Meanwhile, over in London, a lot of post-war
rebuilding was going on in the 1950s and the
authorities were probably keen to save costs. Local
councils could override their own bylaws to do that.
But, in both cases, they could have avoided a great
deal of unnecessary aggravation if they had just done
the right thing in the first place and listened to their
professional advisors. PA
Mike Muller
Mike Muller is a visiting
adjunct professor at the
Wits University School
of Governance and a
former Commissioner
of the National Planning
Commission and Director
General of Water Affairs.
If the city
authorities had
simply taken
the professional
advice they were
given, they could
have avoided the
current mess.
July 2017 Volume 23 I Number 5