Business organisation Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) CEO Busi Mavuso has highlighted an important part of the organisation’s strategy, that of ensuring the performance of the country’s municipalities in delivering basic services to residents.

“Last week, I got to see a success story of what can happen when business and local government work together. There are many stories about municipal infrastructure breaking down and a lack of engineering skills available to fix it. But there are also stories about getting infrastructure back into working order and seeing it result in improved lives for residents,” she says.

“Our kids can’t go to school thinking they had better not need to use the toilet. Yet for many schools across our country, that is what they must do, because the toilets at their schools don’t work and are sometimes dangerous,” Mavuso points out.

She points out that, just over a week ago, she visited a school in the Eastern Cape that, until recently, could only have kids for an hour or two a day because there were no working toilet facilities.

However, this has been fixed thanks to the combined efforts of business, municipalities and the Eastern Cape Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs department, Mavuso highlights.

She outlines that, for the past three years BLSA, together with the US Agency for International Development, or USAID, have been funding a capacity building programme in the provincial department and various municipalities in the province.

She adds that this has allowed for the deployment of retired engineers and financial and technical experts to help improve service delivery.

“It is working. The school I visited now has working toilets. The kids are back to full school days. It is one of eight schools that BLSA has funded among 90 in total that various businesses have backed to have their toilet facilities fixed.

“It has required work with municipalities to get water infrastructure working to deliver to the schools, which also means it gets water to residents and businesses. I also visited a pumpstation in the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality that has been restored through the partnership,” Mavuso says.

She avers that this was very much a collaborative effort.

The capacity programme is led by the National Business Initiative and its Technical Assistance Mentorship & Development project. This seconds retirees to help fix infrastructure, but importantly also ensures the transfer of skills from retirees to permanent engineers, who will be responsible for long-term maintenance and development, Mavuso explains.

“I met young municipality employees who have been mentored by the retirees, gaining skills and confidence thanks to the programme. This ensures there is a long-term legacy, that we are not intervening ad hoc to fix specific problems but ensuring that there is permanent capacity creation.

“The programme works with the [Department of Public Works and Infrastructure’s] Expanded Public Works Programme, so workers join business secondees and, in the process, acquire skills. Some have gone on to start their own businesses,” she says.