No answers and little action from struggling Vhembe

Residents continue to approach the newspaper about the water leakages throughout the town. Since our last report on this matter, another major long-term leak has been brought to our attention.

Residents in Forestry Drive witnessed how a water leak that had been bubbling up out of the ground from an underground break for months, suddenly gain in strength and gush water in such quantity as to be audible from houses across the street from it. After reporting this leak on several occasions to the relevant authorities, nothing was done, and thousands of litres of water continued to go to waste daily.

Residents want to know why these leaks are not being fixed when the town already has a problem with its potable water supply. People have complained once again that the water from the taps in Louis Trichardt has been sandy and brown for several weeks, and earlier this year people complained that it had a bad smell. With broken pipes being left to gush water for months, the excuse of old infrastructure is not making people feel any better about these problems that have been ongoing for years now.

The latest complainant said that he was now appealing to the authorities concerned to “unite to restore the former glory of our town and even improve on it!” Even with this positive hope, he said that he had been phoning the municipality regularly as the water in his street continued to leak over the past months. Initially he had been promised that someone would come out to check the pipe, but his calls were later received with obvious irritation. He said that he had finally stopped phoning because he felt intimidated; instead, he approached the paper.

Vhembe has long been plagued by water shortages. Almost every year a new plan is put forward that promises to fix the district’s problems once and for all. Millions of tax rands are budgeted for, but so far, the water situation in Louis Trichardt remains in shambles. At various intervals the municipality has cited theft of pipes, aging and disintegrating pipes, workers on strike, and problems at water sources as some of the reasons for shortages, but residents want to know why so much potable water is allowed to pour into the ground for extended periods of time even after being reported many times?

The newspaper asked the Vhembe District Municipality (VDM) spokesperson, Mr Matodzi Ralushai, why, if a budget existed for repair and maintenance on the water delivery system, the work was not being done. He was also asked why, if municipal workers promised to attend to problems, still nothing was done. Finally, he was also asked if the many unrepaired pipes were allowing contaminants into the town’s drinking water.

Ralushai replied that the matter was receiving attention and that comments in reply to these questions would be sent, but two weeks have gone by and no reply has been received.

In multiple media reports this year alone, VDM has come under fire regarding issues related to the supply of water, the maintenance of water systems, the implementation of new water schemes and the management of accounts. The hope of a normal water supply to residents is waning as the likelihood of this happening anytime soon becomes unlikely. Vhembe invested R311 million (35% of its annual operating revenue) with the now-embattled VBS Mutual Bank, of which, according to the national treasury, only between 10 and 40 cents on the rand might be recovered.

Vhembe currently owes millions of rands for water and is unable to collect payment from all of those it supplies with water because of the difficulties it has with the issuing of water accounts. Residents want to know what is being done, and what will be done to address the years-long problems with the water supply.

In the Vhembe Municipal Money document posted by the South African government, which is available online, the audit outcomes for the municipality for the years from 2014 to 2017 are part of the public record. Downloading and perusing the report of the auditor-general (AG) on VDM to the provincial legislature, as at 30 June 2017, is any South African’s right.

The online overview states that the AG issued Disclaimers of Opinion for the years 2017, 2016 and 2014. This means that the AG does not have all the underlying documentation and the amounts in question may be so great that it is impossible to give any opinion on all. As for Vhembe’s 2015 financial year, the AG issued an Adverse Opinion. This is expressed when the AG concludes that the annual financial statements do not present the municipality’s financial position, results of operations and cash flows in line with generally recognised accounting practices (GRAP).

Going through the AG’s in-depth report for Vhembe, one finds the words “unable to obtain”, “unable to determine” and “incorrectly calculated” in most paragraphs. The VDM is included in a list presented by Dr Zweli Mkhize, the Minister of Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs (CoGHSTA) of a targeted group of dysfunctional and distressed municipalities. The list was published in May this year. In terms of operational budgets, overspending by up to 5% is usually condoned, and overspending in excess of 15% is considered a sign of high risk. Vhembe overspent 58.1% of its operating budget for July 2016 to June 2017.

A municipality is expected to ensure “that infrastructure is maintained, so that service delivery is not affected”, as per the Municipal Systems Act (32 of 2000). Vhembe spent only 0.67% of its repairs and maintenance budget for the same period. The budget existed - they simply did not use it. A whopping 63.58% of “spending not budgeted for or that was not related to the municipal department’s function” was listed as fruitless and wasteful expenditure in the AG’s report.

Between July 2016 and June 2017, Vhembe’s income was listed as 13.53% being generated locally, and 86.47% received from the national government. The AG notes this difference while saying that municipalities should not be too reliant on transfers and grants from other spheres of government, which Vhembe clearly is. The normal range for spending on staff wages is between 25% and 40%. With Vhembe coming in at a staff wage expenditure of 42.2% for the period, residents would not expect staff shortages to be part of the reason why leaky pipes are not being repaired.

With Vhembe now officially listed as a distressed and dysfunctional municipality, Mkhize is going to be focusing on municipal underspending to try and find out why municipalities such as Vhembe are not using grants, such as the municipal infrastructure grant, that has been allocated to them. Mkhize stated that: “In the past five years since 2012-2013, a total of R3.4 billion in Municipal Infrastructure Grant transfers were stopped and reallocated from underspending municipalities to better-spending municipalities. This was not ideal, as it tended to penalise municipalities with a lower capacity, hence punishing the poorer communities.”

Date:15 September 2018

By: Jo Robinson

Jo joined the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror in 2018 pursuing a career in journalism after many years of writing fiction and non-fiction for other sectors.

Read: 1154