Water, Sewage & Effluent March April 2019 | Page 3

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money would be spent before year end and
before the programme could be concluded.
The committee felt that the War on Leaks
Programme had ‘zigzagged’ since its inception.
Initially, the programme featured nowhere in
the department’s Annual Performance Plan
(APP), then it moved to Programme 1, and
was currently under Programme 3. There
were questions on where the budget for the
programme will be coming from, and the
committee needed assurance that the project
will also be concluded.
In response, Minister Gugile Nkwinti said
that some members are asking the department
to do things that, in terms of the model and the
law, did not belong to the department. He said
leaking pipes and taps are the responsibility
of water services authorities, which are
municipalities — local or district. DWS is the
custodian of water and is responsible for bulk
infrastructure. Reticulation and distribution are
the responsibilities of municipalities in terms
of the delivery model. The Minister suggested
that, although it would take time to amend the
The development of groundwater resources will be crucial for sustaining water security in the wake of South Africa’s increasing water
scarcity.
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Water Sewage & Effluent March/April 2019
1
A
t a Parliamentary Monitoring
Group Committee Meeting
held
halfway
through
February, the Department
of Water and Sanitation (DWS)
and Rand Water presented a
status update on the War on Leaks
Programme, and the department
provided a status report on the
Bucket Eradication Programme (BEP).
Chairperson Mlungisi Johnson said
the committee had made it very clear
at the beginning of the 2018/19 financial
year that service delivery was a priority and
that experiences so far did not attest to that.
Johnson said the department, when appearing
before the committee, did not give the real story
and officials have not been held to account.
He also referred to the unmonitored tariff
structures and said communities are at the
mercy of municipalities.
Among the concerns raised was the BEP,
which has a budget of approximately R579-
million, and there was an expectation that the
Passing the buck-et