The Department of Water and Sanitation has urged the South African financial sector to support its efforts to close the water services R30-billion-a-year infrastructure funding gap.
The department is in the process of drafting a new national water and sanitation master plan, which is expected to be completed in March 2018.
Speaking at the third Annual Water Stewardship summit in Johannesburg last week, the department’s deputy director-general, Trevor Balzer, asked big businesses to assist in funding sustainable development projects.
“We expect to incorporate the feedback we received today from the financial community and other stakeholders to create a plan that effectively addresses the country’s needs,” Balzer said.
The summit provided an opportunity for public and private financiers to become involved in the initial planning and project conceptualization stage of the new National Water and Sanitation Master Plan.
Leading water, infrastructure and financial sector stakeholders held in-depth talks on funding models to improve South Africa’s water security.
They focused on the future of municipal water infrastructure finance, improving municipalities’ capital budgets spending, and removing bottlenecks in municipal procurement.
By involving such financiers early in the process, the department hopes that the master plan can be designed in a way which is as beneficial to the country as it is attractive to investment.
Speakers said South Africa faces water services challenges on a number of fronts, including supply, ageing infrastructure, the need for new infrastructure, significant non-revenue water losses and revenue collection.
Catherine-Candice Koffman, head of infrastructure and telecommunications project finance at Nedbank CIB, said getting involved at this stage of the planning process would help to better conceptualise how corporates can leverage strategic, operational and sustainability goals.
“At Nedbank CIB we understand the intimate connectivity between leveraging natural resources and converting these into viable economic solutions to ensure the sustainability of our business and the socio-economic ecosystem in which we co-exist,” Koffman said.