This was a study of the devolution of water and sanitation management functions from
the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry and Rand Water Board to Tshwane
Metropolitan Municipality. This affects the functions and the infrastructure that goes
with it. This exercise is the fulfilment of the provisions of Water Services Act that
empowers municipalities to become Water Services Authorities and where capacity exists
to also become Water Services Providers.
It was found that though constitutionally, water and sanitation functions resort under
municipalities, in the area of study, the Tshwane municipality did not directly deliver
these functions. This happened due to the fact that Tshwane did not have human capacity
to deal with the functions, they provided the funding as a subsidy to Rand Water Board
who in turn provided financial support to Odi Retail Water that is currently responsible
for water and sanitation management as a subsidiary to Rand Water Board.
The following are recommendations derived from the findings:
That the political activities be raised in the areas to encourage people
to pay for their services and take responsibility for meter reading on
their own like it is happening in Denmark. In Denmark each
household reads meters for both water and electricity personally and
submits the readings to the municipality for billing. As a result the
municipality did not employ special meter readers and by so doing
they safe on salaries.
That greater resource allocation is made to cover the shortfalls that
were experienced due to lack of management capacity and other
resources that would enable Tshwane municipality to run the functions
on their own. That capacity building and support for professionals be streamlined on
the current Odi Retail Water staff for future absorption by municipality.
4. That promotion of community-based development be continued to
encourage community ownership on water management functions.
This could be done through the formation of community water
associations. While community-based approaches are now accepted as
the norm, the necessary: capacity to support them in most cases does
not generally exist at the higher levels (national, district and local) and
Tshwane needs to look at this.
Communities currently remain uninterested in taking part in wider
water management for a number of reasons, including lack of
ownership or control over decisions; lack of real power to make
allocation and use decisions; high transaction costs of involvement;
and poorly developed frameworks by which the views of large
communities can be represented at stakeholder fora.
Therefore, Tshwane must make sure that community's interest is
supported in all respect.
If the municipality cannot handle these functions on its own, then
privatisation should be considered for efficient and effective water and
sanitation management and provision. / Thesis (MBA) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2002
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nwu/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/11402 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | Ntoane, Amon Benjamin |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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