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HEALTH AND SANITATION
Advice about opportunities
in the water business
When people ask me about my work, I tell them that I have
fun learning about other people’s interesting problems.
By Mike Muller
Mike Muller
Mike Muller is a
professional civil engineer
and a visiting professor
at the Wits School of
Governance. Now out of
government, he raises
issues that his former
colleagues cannot.
If people want more information, I say that I give
advice, which leads to questions like “What do you
give advice about?” That gives me a chance to tell
the story about one of the worst pieces of advice
that I have ever given. It was about rainwater tanks. I wasn’t enthusiastic. Yes, they were useful in small
towns (where municipalities are failing) and rural areas.
But there was limited money in those areas. And, surely,
there wasn’t going to be much demand in cities where
water security was more or less guaranteed. I didn’t
think it was much of a business.
Australian academics have shown that rainwater
tanks don’t really help to improve water supplies
in urban areas. In cities like Sydney, water from
rooftops was more expensive than tap water. What
with air pollution and the bad habits of birds, it was
sometimes dangerously polluted and not suitable for
human consumption. Most important though, rainwater
harvesting did not provide a reliable water supply. About a year after that conversation, there was a small
drought in Cape Town. Over the next few years, it
became a really bad drought. And there were pictures
of truckloads of plastic tanks on the N1 to Cape Town
because local moulding factories couldn’t keep up with
the demand.
That’s not surprising. Droughts cause water shortages
because it’s not raining. If you go for six months without
rain, a 5 000-litre rainwater tank will only supply a
household for a month or two. And when there is water
in the taps, you don’t need a tank. Fortunately, my advice wasn’t taken. By the time it rained
again, the company concerned had made a substantial
profit for the investor. I didn’t mind. If the right answer
depends on knowing what the weather is going to be,
you are bound to be wrong most of the time. My advice
comes without any warranty. I tell the story and the client
is free to take the advice or ignore it. And I can either
take the credit or just walk away.
So, when a few years ago, a South African investor asked
me what I thought of the household water tank business,
Rainwater can sometimes
be dangerously polluted
and therefore not suitable
for human consumption.
March 2019 Volume 25 I Number 1
But I can also tell stories about more useful advice. One
consistent success has been with people who think that
they sell a new product or service into the municipal
water sector. I warn them that they will be dealing with
over 200 difficult, conservative, and often quite bankrupt
potential customers. On this, I have generally been right.
So, for instance, most of the global water companies who
rushed to find opportunities in South Africa after 1994
have left, disappointed.
But, 25 years later, watching the crises in water and
electricity, I think things are now changing. Citizens
fed up with political incompetence are starting to push
for water services to be privatised. My advice now is
for private sector operators to start with sanitation —
politicians don’t open sewage works but they do get
into trouble when the stuff pours down the streets or
into the river. There is going to be a win-win opportunity
for business and politicians. Watch this space, that’s
my advice! PA
www.plumbingafrica.co.za