Once a poster child globally, South Africa’s water sector has experienced a significant decline requiring an urgent turnaround.

According to a new report by watchdog Corruption Watch and the Water Integrity Network (WIN), in the 1990s, South Africa was seen as a global leader in water resource management and the provision of water services.

However, systemic corruption and irregular spending amounting to more than R4-billion eventually unhinged the sector, with South Africa failing to achieve and sustain water security, says WIN executive director Barbara Schreiner.

The ‘Money down the Drain: Corruption in South Africa’s water sector’ report, which highlights several public cases that the parties believe are “red flags” for corruption, flags the significant water challenges South Africa currently faces – now a far cry from the sector that achieved the 2015 Millennium Development Goal for domestic water supply.

The country had, through its free basic water policy, given practical effect to the human right to water and it had given legal protection to environmental water flows.

In 2002, South Africa led the campaign to set a global goal for sanitation provision that is now included in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

“And, in many ways, the water legislation was held up as being a gold standard,” Schreiner says.

Now, highlighting the extent of corruption and irregular expenditure in the water and sanitation sector, the parties outline how “informal operating rules prevail” – despite established formal rules, policies and laws – with corruption rife in both the public and private sectors.

“Corruption in the water sector is systemic; the formal rules have been superseded by informal rules that bypass or distort formal processes,” Schreiner says.

The performance of South Africa’s water sector has declined significantly.

Over the last few years, access to a reliable supply of water has been declining on a yearly basis for millions of people around the country, she says, noting that only 65% of households in South Africa have reliable access to water, while the reliable delivery of high-quality water into poor areas is at 37%.

“The resilience of services to problems such as drought has decreased. While Cape Town’s temporary water restrictions gained worldwide publicity, regular supply failures are normal for millions of people around the country,” she continues.

Exacerbating challenges at municipal level, declining payment for water use, increasing municipal debt and pollution, besides others, is the 2018 recognition by the auditor-general of South Africa (AGSA) of ballooning irregular expenditure well above R4-billion, with new cases being uncovered.

“The impact of corruption in the water sector is measured in dry taps, lost jobs and polluted rivers; many, particularly young children, [the elderly] and those with compromised immune systems, have become ill from drinking unsafe water or [because] their homes and toilets cannot be kept hygienic.”

“In 2018, the AGSA [and Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts] recognised that the management of the national Department of Water and Sanitation had collapsed, and that there were billions of rands in irregular expenditure, huge debt and a whole lot of failed projects,” she points out.

Analysing various sources, including reports by the media, the AGSA and the Special Investigating Unit, the report, compiled by principal researcher Mike Muller, describes a number of cases revealing the involvement of a vast array of players at all levels.

The report shows three broad areas of corruption, starting with the manipulation of procurement and operational processes, extending to the influence of policy and regulatory decisions and ending with taking control of key institutions.

“We also have to recognise that what is still happening cannot be divorced from our past. We come out of a profoundly corrupt history – everything before 1994 was corrupt, with an abuse of the system in order to provide water and sanitation [for] the ‘white economy’, and only a trickle [for] black areas,” she says.

“We also need to understand that, post 1994, there was huge pressure to suddenly provide services [for] the underserved millions of South Africans and bring people into the system who had been previously excluded.”

The massive, urgent undertaking, with significant investment and major infrastructure projects, inadvertently led to many “doors being opened to corruption”.

“Although the behaviour of public-sector officials and politicians comes under particular scrutiny, the report also makes clear how the actions of private individuals and businesses, who deliberately exploit weaknesses in the public sector, have an acute impact on water security and on the human right to water. Some companies have actively created conditions which serve their own ends and in which corruption flourishes,” Schreiner continues.

While WIN and Corruption Watch concede that the report, examining incidents up to 2018, is not comprehensive, it is enough to provide an overall picture of where the sector stands, what is happening and what should be done.

“The solution to this is not simply strengthening the formal rules. If the underlying driver is political – for example, securing political party funding or securing political power – strategies to address it must be different [to instances] where the main driver is personal financial gain.”

The report calls for a turnaround in South Africa’s embattled water sector, with the need to make the sector an “island of integrity”.

The parties outline a series of recommendations on actions to be taken to mitigate and deal with the corruption and maladministration, with one useful model being the establishment of an anticorruption forum, such as the Anti-Corruption Health Forum.