The Consulting Engineers South Africa (Cesa) president Felix Fongoqa on Tuesday reiterated the organisation’s concern about the negative consequences of not giving enough focus to the maintenance of existing infrastructure, particularly in the local government sphere.

“Hardly a week goes by without us being reminded in the media about the state of water and wastewater systems in our country,” said Fongoqa at the Water Tech 09 conference, held in Midrand.

“Reports have just recently surfaced of more than 50 municipalities responsible for supplying safe drinking water to millions of homes and businesses across the country, are under investigation, and that government could not give public assurances on the quality of drinking water from these red-flagged municipalities,” said Fongaqa.

All of these red-flagged municipalities have been rated zero in the new Blue Drop water certification programme, which was launched last year, to force public accountability from water providers.

“It is a sad state of affairs that only 22 of the 402 municipalities and bulk water providers achieved Blue Drop status. In addition to this, only two of our 11 bulk-water providers were awarded Blue Drop status for every system that they supplied.”

Fangoqa said that the state of the maintenance and operation of South Africa’s water infrastructure was in “dire straits”.

“A large portion of our waste water treatment works have reached their design capacity with many more closely approaching theirs. These systems are technically complex, and we currently have insufficient plant operators to do the job. As a country, we continue to face a huge technical skills shortage.”

He added that local authorities in Gauteng were currently spending between R50-million and R100-million a year on infrastructure maintenance, however, this was not enough to cover one-third of the costs required for maintenance in the area, let alone refurbishments.

“Cesa believes that the ageing infrastructure in local authorities is a severe national crisis that needs urgent attention. Unless drastic action is taken to counter the failure of water and wastewater infrastructure, South Africa’s economic growth, development, and social stability will be negatively affected. I believe that maintenance of infrastructure must be foremost on the agenda,” Fongoqa stated.

Despite the dire prediction, Fongoqa was upbeat about government’s intended R787-billion infrastructure spend.

“It is encouraging to see our government’s continued commitment to prudent economic management, meaningful social transformation and good governance as articulated in President Jacob Zuma’s State of the Nation address. Cesa is of the opinion that government is investing in the right places under the current economic circumstances.”

He added that it was against the background of a shrinking economy that the consulting engineering industry welcomed the news that Zuma and his administration remained committed to the budgeted infrastructure spend.

“It is encouraging to see that government has prioritized electricity generation, housing, roads, rural development, the expanded public works programme, and most importantly, water and sanitation as key focus areas.”

Fongoqa sated that while the current economic slowdown was painful, it did give the nation an opportunity to get its house in order in time for the next upswing.

“It is in times like these when we, as an industry, truly appreciate our government’s infrastructure development programme as this has an will essentially help to keep our industry on track.”

He quoted a study conducted by the World Bank, which estimated that for every $1 dollar spent on infrastructure, about 19c was added to the gross domestic product (GDP) on an ongoing basis. “Infrastructure development has proven to be a good anti cyclic antidote that counters a downturn in an economy. Economists predict that we can expect the government’s infrastructure programme to add around 7,5% to the GDP over the next seven years. It can therefore be concluded that it makes good economic sense to invest on developing and maintaining infrastructure.”

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