Africa, in 2019, we can’t afford to allow
the best to be the enemy of the good.
How many more people would have
safe water if we could concentrate on
simple things, like making sure that all
water supply is chlorinated? Jobs and
economic development would just be the
cherry on the top.
This was demonstrated nicely
by what happened after Beira. The
chlorine generator manufacturers got
some valuable real-world application
experience and were early entrants into
the saltwater swimming pool disinfection
business! So, a final lesson is that an
opportunity taken often leads to others.
It’s a culture that we need to rediscover
in South Africa and where better than in
the safe water business?
Mike Muller is a visiting adjunct
professor at the Wits School of
Governance. A former DG of Water
Affairs and commissioner of the
National Planning Commission,
he now advises on water and
development matters as a member
of the Strategic Advisory Group
of the UN’s Joint Monitoring
Programme for the water supply
and sanitation components of SDG6.
www.waterafrica.co.za
Water Sewage & Effluent May/June 2019
29
About the author
innovations
contractor and protect them from the
pressures to employ unsuitable relatives,
friends and local residents for complex
tasks. By this stage, many engineers just
want to get the job finished; they are not
going to add operation and maintenance
worries to their to-do lists.
Yet, if we build simple and robust
equipment, it will work better and last
longer. And if we design processes that
use local products and can be operated
by relatively unskilled workers, we are
supporting the local community and the
economy more generally.
In any area of business, there will
always be a ‘better’ product. And
certainly, in the world of water treatment
generally, and disinfection in particular,
there are many alternatives. But in South
The recent Cyclone Idai devastated Mozambique, with dire consequences to
infrastructure.
They even funded a small engineering
company to build a prototype and
transport it to Beira.
It worked! We mixed up 1 000ℓ of salt
solution in the morning, ran the system
for four or five hours and that afternoon
we had 1 000ℓ of hypochlorite solution,
enough to re-chlorinate the water for
250 000 people.
It was too good to be true – for a
month or two. The advantage of the on-
site process was that the hypochlorite
solution could be dosed straight into the
discharge from the reservoirs – if you
try and store it and transport it, it rapidly
loses strength.
However, the problem is that
hypochlorite solution, like chlorine gas, is
corrosive. In our chlorine generator, the
electrolytic cell and pump were made of
corrosion resistant stainless steel (and
the catalyst was platinum-based). But
the rest of the plumbing and electrics
was vulnerable, and we soon began to
have problems. After a month or so, the
experiment was over. We could generate
chlorine locally, but the equipment would
have to be completely re-specified to be
more corrosion resistant.
That experience taught me some
useful lessons. Building new water
systems in South Africa is often a
thankless task. Firstly, explain to
politicians what is proposed and why.
Then identify suppliers who can produce
and deliver the right kind of equipment
at the right time while jumping through
the procurement hoops to justify the
selection. Then go through another
set of procurement processes to get a