The Importance of Questioning Statements Around Gauteng's Water Crisis

By Zukiswa Wanner

Two things happened to me in November. 

In the early part, I finished reading William Henry Vatcher’s White Laager: The Rise of Afrikaner Nationalism (pub. 1965) and in the latter part, I traveled through four provinces chatting to some privileged and some ordinary individuals and communities in different areas in the country and seeking to understand whether they feel liberated, 30 years later. By the end of November, I was so emotionally exhausted, not only did I feel that there is a mirage among many of us that we have a country when the country is in the hands of a few, but that if we want to have a country, we are all going to have to be very active citizens and question everything we engage with from people who are our so-called thought leaders. It is in the context of the above and the conditions therein that I read Ms. Ferial Haffajee’s post on the app formerly known as Twitter.

Ms. Haffajee’s post read: "Gauteng Water Crisis: If you had a Rand Water board with water engineering, water activist and delivery skills, we wouldn’t be having a Christmas water crisis. Eikenhof has a been a problem for years (its engine rooms are being repaired. Board correct at time of posting)."

She then posted the board members and their qualifications, among them the Chief Executive Mr. Sipho Mosai and Board Member Mr. Solomon Mngomezulu who were posted with question marks where their qualifications should be. I am unsure whether this was just lazy journalism on Ms. Haffajee’s part because it took me all of five minutes to see the qualifications of Mr. Mosai Bachelor of Science (BSc) and BSc Honours degrees a Master of Science, a Postgraduate Diploma in Management and Master of Business Administration (MBA) , and Mr. Mngomezulu (a lawyer) on LinkedIn. If  the question marks are because Ms. Haffajee doubts the stated qualifications of the two Board members, this is something that she could ask their respective alma mater. 

The board has two civil engineers who I am sure can advise on issues like drainage, water supply and sewer services; it has a microbiologist as a CEO, and I cannot think of any better professional to tell me whether I can drink my water’; it has a lawyer for obvious reasons. It also has finance people and perhaps this is the reason why, although State Owned Enterprises are not actually designed to make a profit but to service the public, Rand Water has never been bailed out by government. 

As a writer, I would not trust a publishing team of just writers. I would want someone who will look into legal, an accountant and other professions to ensure that we are not stuck on one aspect of the profession at the expense of other sides. I know too that this is the case with the publication where Ms. Haffajee works at.

What does all this have to do with my original statement about the month of November, you will ask?

Quite a bit actually. 

White Laager, as I am sure a lot of other literature does and certainly interviews with civil society activists like Anti-Privatisation Forum’s Trevor Ngwane and former Director General of Public Enterprises Kgathatso Tlhakudi highlight that the purpose of SOEs was never to make a profit but to service the people. And yet since 1994, the push has been for our SOEs to be privatised whenever we the chattering classes complain about bailing out SOEs, little forgetting that they are now servicing all of us across races while during apartheid they did not have as much pressure as they were only servicing less than ten percent of the population. 

History also shows us that where certain parts of SOEs have been privatised, it has not befitted us as it should but has just benefitted the wallets of private companies. Eskom comes to mind. 

And then when we have an SOE that we have actually never had to bail out, in a year where we haven’t had rains and when one of that organisation’s senior staffers has been assassinated, it may be worthwhile to ask the difficult question of whence this criticism from someone who could dig deeper comes from. It’s worth noting that not all of Gauteng has been experiencing problems (I spent the last six months in Paulshof and did not have a single day without water). It’s also worth noting that Gauteng is not an island so it's worthwhile looking at our water situation holistically. Comparisons with Western Cape where dams are currently at more than 90% capacity is foolhardy. On the other hand, neighbouring countries are experiencing the same drought that has plagued the people of Gauteng. 

On the same day that Ms. Haffajee posted, WaterCAN, a network of citizen science activists did a site visit to Eikenhof in response to Rand Water’s announcement that service would be interrupted for maintenance. After the visit, WaterCAN and other civil society groups which consisted of three professional engineers stated in part: 

The scale and intensity of the work currently underway was impressive. The project included installing seven massive valves, each weighing nearly ten tonnes, to enable maintenance and repair of individual pumps without disrupting water supply of other units. 

WaterCAN’s statement concludes:

Water supply challenges extend beyond maintenance, stemming from systemic issues like inadequate funding and poor local government management. It also means that poor management at local level that results in extensive water losses and weak revenue collection must be addressed. Residents and broader civil society must advocate for local governments to ring-fence water and sanitation funding to ensure its used properly. 

Ms. Haffajee reposted this statement from WaterCan but it would have been great if she had given it as much prominence as her original post questioning composition of the Rand Water Board. 

Look, not having water is frustrating for all of us. 

Consistently thinking about how we will cook, wash or drink is not ideal, but let’s critique justly. If, in a month’s time we are hearing that Eikenhof is not serving us well, then we all have a right to hold the leadership of Rand Water accountable. Jumping the gun when Rand Water itself communicated that there would be maintenance by playing the men (and women) and pulling the trope of cadre deployment on a varied but educated board seems unfair, moreso coming from a person of Ms. Haffajee’s calibre who knows the importance of objective journalism. 

The world already has one Clarissa Ward, we don’t need anymore. 

Certainly not in South Africa where neoliberalism has us talking left while we keep walking walking right. Not in a South Africa where village activists like Nonhle Mbuthuma in places like Xolobeni have to stay in hiding because they are speaking for the continued purity of their water and wetlands as they fight multinationals and Johannesburg businessmen as local partners, who want to prospect minerals. A South Africa where a provincial government  feels no shame to state that they are hiring private investigators in their fight against water saboteurs (Daily Dispatch, November 26). 

It’s just a tweet, someone will say. 

Unfortunately while the platform formerly known as Twitter is just a place for a certain group of people, as elections have shown us, it’s also very much what the people in power use to change public opinion and can be the difference between hiring and firing of public officials and keeping an institution public or making it private.

In a South Africa where it now seems being anti-poor is de riguer as we deliberately ignore that the poor comprise the majority of our population and they will be hurt the most by the privatisation of water if we do not publicly comment responsibly.

 2024 The Continent's Africans of the Year| 2022 Moi University African Cluster Centre Fellow|  2020 New African 100 Most Influential Africans| 2020 Brittle Paper Literary Person of the Year| 2018 JIAS Fellow| 2015 K.Sello Duiker Award winner for London Cape Town Joburg| 2014 Africa 39er| 2011 Shortlistee for Commonwealth Best Book Men of the South| 2008 Shortlistee for K.Sello Duiker Award for The Madams

* Zukiswa Wanner is an award-winning author, a Moi University African Cluster Centre Fellow, and among The Continent's '2024 Africans of the Year'. 

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.