The ministry of dry taps? The Department of Water Affairs and Forestry and the transition to...

THE MINISTRY OF DRY TAPS?THE DEPARTMENT OF WATERAFFAIRS AND FORESTRY AND THETRANSITION TO MARKET-BASEDSERVICE PROVISION IN SOUTHAFRICA1

Stephen Louw Department of Political StudiesUniversity of the Witwatersrand

e-mail: [email protected]

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ABSTRACT

This article considers critically the underlying premises of the commu

nity water supply and sanitation programme. Although subject to

increasing criticism from a wide range of ideological perspectives, the

conceptual foundations of this policy are sound and compatible with

broader macroeconomic restructuring worldwide. Furthermore, the

emphasis on community participation is a welcome, albeit tentative,

shift towards the empowerment of previously marginalised commu

nities, both in terms of their own ability to help shape development

projects initiated in their name, and in terms of their evolving

relationship to local government. However, for ostensibly political

reasons, the South African government has tended to bypass community

structures and has emphasised rapid delivery at the expense of

sustainability. This suggests that it is not as committed to its own policy

as might reasonably be expected.

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INTRODUCTION: THE `IMPLEMENTATION GAP'

Since 1994, the ability of the South African government to implement its

ambitious development and reconstruction programmes has been sorely, and at

times somewhat embarrassingly, lacking. In terms of general macroeconomic

policy, the overnight abandonment of the highly statist Reconstruction and

Development Programme (RDP, the ANC's election programme in 1994) in

Politeia Vol 22 No 1 2003 pp 93 118

93

favour of the more market orientated Growth, Employment and Redistribution

(GEAR) strategy served only to highlight government's own concerns about its

inability to implement core policy, a development exacerbated by recent

admissions about the inability of many state departments to spend (or even

account for) their annual budgets.2 This `implementation gap', that is, this divide

between policy commitment, implementation and ultimate delivery has contributed enormously towards an erosion of (foreign and domestic) confidence in

the South African economy, a loss that the fledging post apartheid economy was

ill prepared to deal with, and which was, in large measure, the ultimate driving

force behind the dramatic `collapse' in the value of the South African rand in

2001.

In all three spheres of government, growing capacity shortcomings pose a

fundamental obstacle to the implementation of policy. In the short term at least,

these problems are likely to be enhanced by a dramatic restructuring of local

government structures and core personnel in the wake of the demarcation of new

municipal structures and the November 2000 local government elections. Coupledto this, the Mbeki government's tendency to politicise the civil service and to

replace or undermine actively independent minded directors general and senior

civil servants, suggests that party loyalty outweighs line function expertise as a

criterion for appointment,3 a development bound to impact negatively on the

ability of the South African government to deliver services and fulfil its

development obligations.

In many cases, government shortcomings are not specifically the fault of bad

policy. On the contrary, well thought out and widely respected policies often fall

flat in the face of capacity shortcomings, as well as the inconsistent support that

they receive from government. An obvious example of this is South Africa'spolicies on human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syn

drome (HIV/Aids), widely regarded as amongst the most proactive and

progressive in the world, but negated in large measure by the president's

incredulous views on the HIV's link to Aids. Another example of arbitrary

interference in established policy is the ANC's promise in the 2000 local

government elections by the ANC to provide 6 000 litres of `free' water per

household a month ± a promise that threatens to negate completely (literally

overnight) almost all policy developed for the community water sector since

1994, with all the obvious implications that this has for delivery.4

This last point leads to the core focus of this article: the implementation ofpolicy by the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF). Here it is clearly

possible to speak of an `implementation gap', namely, a `gap' between the

generally well received Community Water Supply and Sanitation Programme and

its somewhat chequered implementation. The focus here is specifically on

community water supply programmes, that is to say, programmes aimed at

providing basic supplies of potable water to poor, primarily rural and peri urban

communities. In nearly all cases, this involves pumping water from a local water

The ministry of dry taps? The Department of Water Affairs and Forestry...

94

source to a reservoir located in or near the community and then articulating this

water from the reservoir to standpipes located at strategic places within the

community.5 Importantly, and in contrast to the approach taken in other

developing economies, the emphasis here is entirely on the provision of water for

household consumption. No provision is made for agricultural water.

Focusing specifically on the Community Water Supply and Sanitation

Programme, we suggest that policy developed under Minister Kader Asmal's

tenure has the ability to improve the lives of the rural poor meaningfully, and,

albeit in small measure, to strengthen the institutional capacity of otherwise

marginalised communities. However, for the most part, projects set up to deliver

water to peri urban and rural communities have proved to be unsustainable, and it

is this `gap' between policy and implementation, that needs careful consideration.

As is the case with the GEAR macroeconomic policy ± whose underlying

philosophy is shared by the Community Water Supply and Sanitation Programme

± we suggest that the South African government's commitment to the

implementation of its core policy commitments is ambiguous, crippled in large

measure by the vicissitudes of political populism as well as critical institutional

and human capacity shortcomings. In the case of community water and

sanitation, this reluctance fully to embrace the paradigm within which policy is

framed has had a devastating impact on delivery. Although the government

denies this, the promise of `free water' is clearly a palliative measure designed to

mask this failure.

Part One of this article introduces the controversy surrounding the performance

of DWAF since 1994. In Part Two we focus and, for the most part, defend

DWAF's policy on community based rural and peri urban water projects. Part

Three then considers briefly some of the capacity problems and political

shortcomings affecting implementation of these policies, after which a brief

conclusion is offered.

PART ONE

1.1 Kader Asmal's `disaster': 1994 to 1999

Prior to 1994, water and sanitation provision reflected the peculiar class and racial

character of power in South Africa. Rural and designated `black areas' were

largely under serviced, if they were serviced at all, contributing to a huge disparity

in access to basic resources. An estimated 12 million South Africans did not have

access to safe drinking water, whilst 20,5 million South Africans did not have

access to adequate sanitation facilities.6 Overcoming such disparities is one of the

greatest challenges facing the nascent democracy in South Africa. Not only does

this require redressing past imbalances, but, significantly, it presupposes the

development of an institutional and social environment propitious for sustainable

water service delivery. These two imperatives, which might loosely be dubbed

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political and socio economic respectively, rest together uneasily. For the student of

political transition, the way in which they articulate provides useful insight into

both the immediate and long term priorities of the South African government, as

well as the tensions within the ruling state apparatus. Clearly, focusing on

delivery offers (short term) political gains, whilst the creation of an environment

likely to promote sustainability is likely to have greater (long term) impact on the

broader socio economic basis of peri urban and rural communities. Worldwide,

electoral and developmental imperatives rest uncomfortably with one another and

South Africa is no exception. The ability of the post apartheid state to juggle these

imperatives and to satisfy at least the basic developmental needs of its populace

(in this case, the previously marginalised and disenfranchised), whilst at the

same time transforming more fundamentally and promoting a sustainable socio

economic basis for service delivery, is one of the key criteria with which the

success of the democratic transition must be measured.7

Against this background, the DWAF, led during the first five years of

democracy in South Africa (1994±9) by Kader Asmal, and more recently by

Ronnie Kasrils, have made enormous strides in seeking to overcome the legacy of

racial capitalism and to create opportunities for all South Africans to claim the

basic resources previously denied them. Although difficult to verify, DWAF

claims, through its capital infrastructure programme, to have delivered potable

water to almost 7 million people, and to an additional 3 million when urban

housing and associated programmes are taken into account (Muller 2001:1).8 It is

hoped that the remainder of the backlog will be addressed within the next three

years.

Perhaps more significant in the long term, Asmal proved remarkably adept at

promoting a vision of transformation within the sector ± a vision compatible with

current macroeconomic policy and with the government's desire to promote

reconstruction and development. Whatever its failings, when compared to the

disastrous performance of other core developmental ministries, the achievements

of DWAF should not be forgotten.

1.2 The controversy

Within the water sector the policies pursued by DWAF have long been a source of

considerable tension. Despite widespread public admiration for Minister Asmal's

role in establishing the Community Water Supply and Sanitation Programme and

for his success in passing crucial legislation for the sector,9 it is alleged that he has

emphasised rapid delivery for essentially political reasons and that this had

undermined the sustainability of rural and peri urban water supply programmes.

Indeed, on succeeding Asmal in office, Minister Kasrils was quick to distance

himself from some of the criticism directed at his predecessor, suggesting that

`[t]here is more to service provision than counting the number of taps and toilets

delivered' (Source Water and Sanitation Weekly 2000).


96

Many of the criticisms that had been expressed privately within the sector for

some time were brought to the fore by a somewhat sensationalist article published

in the Sunday World (9 May 1999). At the crux of this lies the largely

unsubstantiated claim that between 50 and 90 per cent of water projects initiated

by DWAF have failed and that `its delivery of drinking water to over three million

rural people may be nothing more than a pipe dream with more than half ofrecipients no longer getting clean or even regular water'. Central to the criticism is

the claim that DWAF's `success' has involved little more than the installation of

pipes in communities that are ill prepared to take ownership of water projects. An

overemphasis on physical `output' (i.e. the installation of pipes and reservoirs)

has meant that little real work has been done to establish the institutional and

social framework for sustainable service provision (as opposed to delivery per se).Although government emphasises the need for its staff, engineers and consultants

to work closely with community structures at all stages of a water project, in

practice this seldom occurs. As numerous external evaluations now show,10

communities played little if any role in the design phase, were seldom aware ofthe full costs involved in a water project and were not trained to take

responsibility for the project once the implementing agent had left the

community. For these reasons, many water projects had either run to a halt or

relied almost exclusively on expensive and unsustainable government subsidies.

Until recently, no monitoring and evaluation systems were implemented to assist

with the management of community projects,11 a factor which helps explain the

extent to which community based water projects continue to rely on external

intervention and financial support (Breslin 1999a). In the absence of viable local

government structures, community capacity to administer and take ownership of

water projects is critical, which makes this general neglect especially problematic.12

Despite the growing evidence of failings in the community water supply

programme, there is little to suggest that Minister Asmal (or his successor,

Kasrils) was prepared to take corrective action. At least one senior departmental

head resigned in 1997 after Asmal had refused to honour an earlier promise to

allow officials to devote more time and energy to institutional and social, rather

than simple technical, concerns.13 Most of these criticisms were aired within the

sector at a conference held at Roodeplaat Dam outside Pretoria in November 1997

(DWAF 1997b, DWAF 1998a c).14 However, it was the aforementioned article in

the Sunday World that brought this criticism into the public arena. Wellman,drawing on research generated by the Mvula Trust, the largest NGO in the water

and sanitation sector, which works closely with DWAF, from material presented

at a DWAF sponsored conference held in East London in March 1999, and from

interviews with key people in the water sector, reported that more than half of the

water projects initiated since 1994 had collapsed, and that an estimated one and

a half million rural people were not getting clean or regular water as a result of the

policies pursued by Asmal's Ministry. Despite having invested R2,2 billion in

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97

these schemes, Wellman argued that the government had failed in its objective of

providing people with basic access to potable water. Rural schemes initiated at

great cost had proven to be unsustainable. This was not only because of a culture

of non payment and high levels of vandalism and piracy, but also because of

essential faults in the design of the project. Water projects were usually designed

without any input from the community (the users), were often far too expensivefor rural people to afford, and the Minister himself was accused of over

emphasising delivery for the sake of public relations.

Press speculation in the days that followed focused purely on the dramatic

image of taps running dry, but failed to provoke any real debate over the successes

of the community water supply and sanitation programme (Veotti 1999, Fine

1999, Anon 1999, Moloi 1999, Zondi 1999, Smith 1999). In the run up to the

1999 general election, DWAF was keen to avoid any hint of public criticism. True

to this sentiment, Mike Muller, the Director General of DWAF, suggested that

communities were themselves to blame for these problems (cited in Wellman

1999, see also Muller 1999), whilst Asmal attacked the political motives of theSunday World editors, whom he accused of exaggerating maliciously these

problems for political purposes (Khumalo 1999).

Whilst the Sunday World criticism focused on the department's failure to deliver

sustainable water, `traditional statists'15 saw this as a chance to voice their own

concerns about the 'neo liberal' undertones of government policy (Veotti 1999).

Of particular contention was the department's focus on cost recovery, and their

repeated threats to cut off water supplies to non paying communities. This, it was

argued, reflected yet another attempt to marginalise the rural poor and to make

them carry the burden of transition. Instead of trying to make communities take

responsibility for core operations and maintenance responsibilities, it wassuggested, the state should accept its democratic responsibility to provide services

to the poor and indeed should raise service levels well beyond the pitiful RDP

standard. By contrast, many of the earlier critics upon whose work the SundayWorld article drew, rallied to the minister's defence (Breslin 1999b, Kleinschmidt

1999), insisting that despite some failures on the part of DWAF, the community

based approach to development pioneered in the sector since 1994 had proved a

realistic alternative to both statist and simple `free market' approaches to service

delivery. Failures, they argued, lay at the level of implementation rather than

policy, and it is at the former level that corrective actions should be directed.

In this schema, one is presented with an (overly simplistic) image of the watersector in which the forces of good are pitted against the evil `dark side', in the

form of Asmal and his 'neo liberal' cronies in the World Bank. Some statist critics

drew attention to the fact that the first head of the Mvula Trust came from the

World Bank, and has now returned to it. Despite the essentially ad hominem nature

of this attack, there is a rational core to some of this criticism. DWAF has, to date,

focused primarily on delivering basic services to the rural areas. This is defined as

a minimum of 20 to 30 litres of potable water per person daily, delivered by


98

standpipes within 200 metres of households (the so called RDP standard).

Tentative evidence suggests that one of the main reasons for non payment is this

low level of service and, in particular, the lack of individual household

connections (Dryer 1998).16 Whether communities would, in fact, pay (or be

able to pay) for higher levels of service remains a moot point, however, as Asmal

refused consistently to countenance debate over differing service levels. This isespecially troubling as lower levels of service are often more affordable, whilst

handpumps can provide potable water, either as a backup or as a supplement to a

more extensive service, with almost no operations and maintenance costs.17

Minister Kasrils suggested to Cabinet (in 2000) that the department provide

handpumps free of charge to communities as a stopgap until articulated water

supplies could be delivered. Despite the fact that government estimates that it will

take 20 years to overcome the backlog in service delivery, this call was rejected

out of hand as reminiscent of apartheid era services.18

Rather than deal with the `bigger question' relating to the design of water

projects and the provision of alternative water supplies, DWAF has (understandably) been preoccupied with the dismal levels of cost recovery in the sector.

As this is allegedly as low as four per cent in some areas, DWAF's response to the

crisis of service delivery has focused very narrowly on this one aspect.`Credit

control' has thus, as one commentator noted, `been intensified against poor

households who cannot afford to pay for increasingly costly water' (Ronnie,

1999) and insufficient thought has gone into establishing who can pay, how

much they can pay, or indeed, into finding out for what type and level of service

people would be willing to pay. In some cases, especially in Northern KwaZulu

Natal, attempts to force expensive water schemes with high registration costs onto

communities have met with fierce resistance and the continued use of alternativewater supplies (unprotected wells and rivers) has contributed to the spread of

cholera.

To be fair, the issue here is not simply the cost of water (water is very scarce in

South Africa), or the widespread culture of non payment, which have had a

crippling effect on infrastructure and service provision in all sectors of the South

African economy. DWAF can hardly be blamed for either of these. The more

serious area of concern, and where the implementation of government policy

needs more careful scrutiny, is the claim that water schemes were foisted onto

communities with little or no attempt at securing community participation in

water projects ex ante. At the opening ceremony for a recent water project inKwaZulu Natal, for example, Minister Asmal admitted without embarrassment

that the question of tariffs and affordability had not yet been broached, but that he

`was sure that an agreement can be reached' in the future (cited in Smith 1999).

Rather than spend time and resources developing the social and institutional

environment needed to empower communities, it seems easier to blame the rural

poor for their own shortcomings. In this context, the lack of any felt sense of

ownership or responsibility for water projects is hardly surprising.

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What makes this insensitivity to public opinion all the worse is that the

community water supply and sanitation programme is a core RDP objective and is

supposedly informed by a `people led' conception of development (Reconstruc

tion and Development Plan 1994, 1995, 1996). Water projects are, in contrast to

this directive, designed consistently in a top down fashion and driven by

technical rather than social considerations.

Despite obviously different motivations, the post 1994 government appears to

share with its predecessor a willingness to plan the lives of its citizens from

above. The government's statist critics have not questioned the inherently

paternalistic basis of this developmental paradigm (see Ruiters & Bond 1999,

Bond et al 2000: esp. 28±33). On the contrary, their alternatives remain trapped

within this framework and boil down to demands for higher service levels,

subsidies, greater state involvement in operations and maintenance, and for the

first 50 litres of water per person per day to be provided free of change. The RuralPeople's Charter (1999) is a good example of this evolving trend.

This debate is, however, unsatisfactory, as most of the critics sidestep the key

issues at stake and focus only on the emotive images of taps running dry. To

avoid this pitfall, it is necessary to take a step back and consider the underlying

assumptions upon which this new developmental paradigm rests. After

considering the conceptual underpinnings of DWAF policy, we review briefly

some of the reasons why this has not always achieved its intended results.

Although our focus is on water, the discussion here is of relevance to broader

developmental debates, it concerns (and pre supposes) a wider transformation of

socio economic relations accompanying the shift towards more market oriented

government in South Africa.

PART TWO

2.1 Shifting development paradigms: the CommunityWater Supply and Sanitation Programme

Outside the former `white towns' and larger administrative centres, service

provision has historically been neglected. In rural and peri urban areas, water

shortages, large distances between remote villages and the relatively small

numbers of people involved make it impossible for government to support

anything other than comparatively low levels of service ± ostensibly on site water

systems. Most water systems installed since 1994 involve some form of

reticulation to communal standpipes, run by either a diesel or an electrically

powered engine. Government carries the capital costs of water projects,19 and

community members are only expected to pay for the operations and maintenance

costs.20 Once the water project is completed and where water supplies permit,

individual households are often given the chance to upgrade these to household

reticulation standard, although here the costs (approximately R700,00 ±


100

R1 000,00) are borne by the household concerned, and are in many cases

prohibitive.21

Central to the criticism of DWAF is the claim that, whilst the much publicised

installation of taps and pipes has garnered political kudos for central government,

little thought has gone into how these systems are to be paid for or managed.

Sustainability under such circumstances entails an adaptation to the parameters

of market orientated service delivery ± the provision of an enabling develop

mental environment rather than the satisfaction of `basic needs'22 and might

loosely be defined as the successful maintenance of projects for some time after

completion without an ongoing need for external intervention.23 This implies not

only a substantial recovery of operating (not capital) costs, but also that the

structures responsible for managing the project ± whether they are community

committees or local government ± are able to take appropriate corrective action

when problems emerge. Of the two, it is the ability effectively to impact on the

management of water projects which has received the least attention.

This does not, in any way, mean that the user must necessarily pay for all costs,

or deny the possibility of cross subsidisation where this is possible. Neither does

it mean that the state abandons or even reduces its developmental responsibilities.

Rather, the argument is that the state has a fundamental role to play in creating

the conditions within which development can best be secured and to empower

community structures (or external bodies such as local government, where these

exist) to manage projects effectively.24 This is in accordance with international

best practices, informed by the successful adoption of this paradigm in developing

countries.25 The remainder of this article considers this argument, both in abstract

and with specific reference to the Community Water Supply and Sanitation

Programme in South Africa. It is suggested that people led (or demand led)

development has the potential to overcome most of the problems encountered in

the sector and offers a far more viable basis from which to improve the lives of the

rural poor than the alternatives proposed by Asmal's `state centred' critics.

2.2 Sustainability and community governance

Perhaps the single biggest shift in the water sector since the so called United

Nations (UN Water) Decade (1980s) is the move away from the idea that the state

should provide water services directly, independent of market forces and

community structures. This lastmentioned point was part of a broader develop

mental focus on satisfying the `basic needs' of the very poor, which prioritised

direct allocation of basic services to individuals as opposed to a focus on

macroeconomic growth.26 The shift away from a `basic needs' approach to

development occurred in the wake of dramatic failures of state sponsored rural

water programmes in the developing world and the realisation that not only did

massive state expenditure on water supply have limited impact on the reliability

or quality of water supplied but, more generally, that by focusing on top down

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expenditure, community structures were disempowered and even when rural

incomes received a boost, this did little to promote local economic development.

The failures (and often intense human suffering) promoted by excessively top

down development is demonstrated amply in the former communist states in

Central Asia throughout the twentieth century (McKinney 1997, O'Hara &

Hannan 1999), and rural India of the 1970s and early 1980s (Bernstein et al.

1992, Roy 1999). Unless the state is willing to continue ad infinitum to subsidise

increasingly costly and otherwise unsustainable schemes ± and this is simply not

possible in most developing countries, including South Africa ± such arguments

are an appeal to state paternalism that undermines, rather than improves, the

chances for rural people to escape the clutches of structurally induced poverty.

In response to this, development theory began to stress the need for community

participation in the projects enacted in their name. In order to promote

sustainability in water projects, it was suggested that communities should cease

to be passive recipients and should instead play an integral part in projects from

their inception (Breslin 1999a). At the very least, communities should help to

determine the type of service that is provided, and should be in a position to

monitor and evaluate the performance of the service provider. Unless this is done,

communities are unlikely to develop a sense of ownership of water projects and

there is little to motivate them to take responsibility for such programmes

(McCommon et al. 1990, DWAF 1998d). Thus, whereas earlier top down

development projects tended to bypass community structures ± their main

objective, it should be remembered, was simply to deliver services ± the argument

here is that unless community ownership and support are assured up front, the

promotion of a sustainable developmental environment becomes almost

impossible. Not only is it necessary to focus on the technical components of

water supply, but it is equally important to develop an appropriate social and

institutional environment within which developmental services such as water can

reliably be assured. Above all, this implies establishing an institutional and

managerial environment appropriate to the community in question and the type

of water project that needs to be managed. To a significant extent (as we point out

later) this means conceiving development projects in market orientated rather

than traditional welfarist terms and professionalising the management of these

projects.

Although there is no single participatory model that is followed, development

projects conceived in these terms typically involve the election and training of a

village water committee. The committee will be responsible for managing the

project, a task likely to involve the collecting and administering of funds as well

as basic operations and maintenance. In many cases, the committee will perform

these tasks directly. In other cases, community structures can choose not to play a

direct role in the provision of services and either local government or an approved

external service provider will fulfil this function. Here it is important that the


102

institution responsible for service provision is accountable to community

structures.

Whatever the theoretical options, in peri urban and rural South Africa the

absence of viable local government authorities and the limited opportunity to

profit from service provision to the rural and peri urban poor mean that

community management is a necessity, at least until local government is able

effectively to take on board some of these responsibilities.27 This means not only

that committees have to develop the managerial and technical capacity to run the

project, but also (and this is probably the most neglected aspect of all), it is

necessary to address questions of accountability and institutional incentives if

community participation and long term sustainability are to be assured.28

The post 1994 South African government has clearly been influenced by this

new developmental paradigm. This can be seen as early as the initial drafts of the

RDP ± initially, the main developmental policy guidelines for government ± as

well as the policies adopted by a number of different ministries. However the

market orientated nature of such policies should not be mistaken for a complete

abdication of state responsibility for service provision, or to the introduction of

exploitative cash economies into destitute rural communities.29 Rather, DWAF's

policies imply a constructive attempt to avoid the Scylla of complete 'neo liberal'

privatisation and the Charybdis of excessive state paternalism. Whilst the state is

no longer seen as a simple supplier or dispenser of welfare, it is still seen to have

an active developmental role. Indeed, contrary to the claims of many critics (see

e.g. Bond & Ruiters 2001), the current macroeconomic programme GEAR ±

formulated after, but in many ways anticipated by, the community water supply

and sanitation programme ± envisages a gross increase in expenditure on social

and developmental concerns. In so far as this is geared towards the creation of

social and institutional capacity in underdeveloped areas, policies of this ilk are

indeed a positive response to the challenges of state±market restructuring in an

increasingly commodified world economy.

The key issue at stake, in South Africa as elsewhere in the developing world, is

thus not simply the level of state expenditure, but rather, the manner in which state

intervention and support occurs. In GEAR there is still a strong (neo Keynesian)

focus on demand management (Nattrass 1997), although this occurs through

community based development rather than top down intervention. By examining

the policy developed for the water and sanitation sector it is possible to see how

this new paradigm is expected to operate and also to show just how different this

is from the 'neo liberalism' that the statist left seeks mechanically to uncover

behind every legislative turn of the post apartheid South African government (see

e.g. Bond 2000, Bond 2001, Bond et al. 2000, Bond & Ruiters 2001).

2.3 Demand-led development

In keeping with the aforementioned principle of participatory development, as

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well as the government's wider commitment to the democratisation of South

African society, legislation for the water and sanitation sector gives effect to two

broad policy guidelines, namely, a commitment to institutional redress and equality(captured in the maxim, `some for all' as opposed to `all for some'), and a

commitment to people led or demand driven development. Whilst both of these

raise complex social, political and ethical concerns (ie what exactly is meant byequality?), it is the desire to promote demand led development that has received

the greatest attention from policy makers. Thus the White Paper on Water Policy(RSA 1997) insists that `the motivation for development [must] come from within

the community, not from some outside agency'. This means that it is up to

communities themselves to determine their developmental priorities, and to help

formulate the plans that will further their objectives.30

As ever, translating general principle into policy is a complex and ambiguous

process. Perhaps the key question here is: how exactly are communities expected

to develop and articulate this `demand'? What is it exactly that stimulates

`demand?' Does this presuppose a degree of capacity within the community tomake important decisions, for example, about service levels and technology

choices? And if so, how does one set about building this capacity in order to allow

communities to determine their own demand? This raises a further question:

should the external agents play a role in educating such communities about the

value of water services in order to stimulate demand? If so, does this constitute

artificial `demand stimulation',31 and if so, how will this affect the sustainability

of the project after delivery?

The artificial creation of `demand' is likely to remain a factor for as long as

there is advantage to be gained by outside agents. Numerous examples of

communities who have had water projects installed, but who are subsequently notwilling to support the project once the full social and economic costs are revealed,

can be cited. Reasons offered include the fact that they would rather continue to

walk long distances to collect water ± which in practice means that the women

fetch water ± and use their money to satisfy what they regard as more pressing

needs. In other cases, people are not willing to pay for services, as they feel that

the technology choice or service level is inappropriate. Alternatively, because the

project was initiated and effectively managed by outsiders, the community feels

little sense of ownership of, and therefore little sense of obligation to, the project

in question (Breslin 1999a).

This takes one back to the question of how one conceives development in thefirst place? If the emphasis is on the duty of the state physically to supply

services, then, clearly, demand led development is little more than a slogan. If,

however, one's focus is on developing an environment within which commu

nities can make informed developmental choices and take responsibility for

developmental projects, then clearly demand led development becomes impor

tant. In public, all actors in the water sector support the idea of demand led

development. In practice, however, most place insufficient emphasis on the roles


104

and responsibilities of community structures and, similarly, most ignore the need

to create supportive lines of accountability between the community, community

structures and local government.

One of the reasons for this neglect is the fact that many actors in the sector,

especially technical staff, are deeply suspicious of community structures and

doubt their capacity to manage projects effectively. Moreover, it is fair comment

to say that working with community structures is a time consuming, frustrating

and, at times, an expensive task. In the short term, this approach often means

delivering water to fewer communities; although it is hoped that this will be offset

by the fact that projects operating within a propitious institutional and social

environment will prove sustainable over time. This is what community based

development is all about. It is neither a top down `statist' or a strictly laissez faire(in which communities are either bypassed or left to the mercy of market forces)

approach to development.

However, as noted earlier, political and socio economic imperatives are often

bad bedfellows. The South African government is (understandably) concerned to

be seen to deliver quickly, and does not want to be accused of dragging its heals

and not getting on with the job of providing water, whether it was `demanded' or

not.32 The quote by Minister Asmal reproduced above, in which he admitted that

the water project he was opening had yet to determine appropriate tariffs for

users, is a good example of this obviously `political' neglect.

2.4 Self-financing and sustainability

As has been noted, a central assumption underpinning current government policy

is the idea that water must be treated as an economic resource, not a welfare

responsibility. In language that signifies clearly the extent to which the

government has accepted the move toward market orientated service provision,

DWAF insists that service payments are to be understood as `integral to a

demand driven approach'. Although the possibility of cross subsidisation or

other forms of financial support are not ruled out, `demand' is understood here in

explicitly neo classical economic terms, that is, as user willingness and ability to

pay, as opposed to social need.Those who support the principle of self financing raise two arguments in its

defence. Firstly, the government clearly lacks the funds necessary to meet

community needs out of the current budget. Although the government is prepared

to cover most start up and infrastructure costs (and sees this as its social duty), it

is neither able nor prepared to continue to subsidise ongoing operating and

maintenance costs.33

The second component of this defence is more controversial. Increasingly,

many actors in the water sector have come to accept that the benefit of making

communities pay for services goes well beyond simple cost recovery. This is

particularly true of projects drawing water from a local source, which rely on a

Stephen Louw

105

significant degree of community support during all phases of the project. Some

form of cost recovery increases communities' sense of ownership and, by

implication, enhances their commitment to the success of the project (this is spelt

out in DWAF 1997a:13).

In practice, both DWAF and local government are significantly less committed

to cost recovery (or, at least, to enforcing cost recovery) than these statements

suggest. For one thing, DWAF does not require communities to make significant

upfront contributions to water projects, and has prevented NGOs working within

the sector from doing so. As a result, communities have little if any vested interest

in any capital expenditure that is made and it is difficult to develop community

structures that take long term responsibility for the success of what they have

come to regard as their own project.34 Enforcement of policy is thus not only

arbitrary but also subject to the vagaries of political sentiment. In the period

leading up to the general election in 1999, for example, a senior Cabinet minister

known for his animated public defence of cost recovery (in all sectors, including

education) privately chastised DWAF field staff for threatening to enforce this in

non paying communities.35

This brings to mind the political problems raised earlier in this discussion of

`demand led' development. This implies a shift away from the idea that the state

provides community water services within a welfare framework to an approach

that sees such services being offered within a market orientated environment.

This parallels broader shifts within development discourse away from a `meeting

basic needs' approach to a focus on promoting sustainability within an

increasingly liberalised domestic and world economy (cf. Ebrahim 2001).

Although the medium to long term benefits of this approach are accepted by

all, in the short term it makes it difficult for the government to be seen to deliver

on its election promises. As the political pressure for rapid delivery increases,

politicians are less likely to embrace an ethic of community ownership if this is

seen to stand in the way of short term delivery.

Two examples of political interference can be offered to illustrate this point.

Firstly, in a late 1990s Mvula water project, a community agreed to contribute to

the running costs of a diesel engine used to pump water. Within a short period,

however, the community stopped paying for the diesel, as a result of which the

water pump was turned off. The community leaders then approached DWAF,

who arranged to have a tank of diesel sent to the community free of charge.36 This

undermined completely the operating principles of the project and made it

difficult for Mvula to insist on payments in neighbouring community projects.

Similar reports have been made about water projects throughout Mpumalanga

Province, where attempts to force communities to take responsibility for the

operations and maintenance of water projects were thwarted by DWAF'S

consistent tendency to subsidise (or cover in full) these costs. Although DWAF

has written repeated letters to communities, warning them that subsidies would


106

be cut, each successive deadline is ignored and communities now take these

subsidies for granted.37

Secondly, it is important to mention the (2000) election promise to provide the

first 6 000 litres of water `free' to households.38 In the urban areas, the operations

and maintenance costs involved in the provision of this water will, it is hoped, be

funded through cross subsidisation and sliding tariff structures, whereas a

percentage of the equitable share transfer payments (made by central government

to help support local governments) will be used in the peri urban and rural areas.

This has a number of implications, perhaps the most important of which being

the fact that as nearly all rural households consume less than 6 000 liters of water

per month, by implication this implies that users are no longer required to pay for

water consumed. Whilst DWAF is quick to paint this as `a logical outcome of

policy processes launched in 1994' (Muller 2001: 2), this is clearly not the case at

all. Instead, `free' water is a fundamental challenge to the development principles

to which DWAF has repeatedly professed allegiance and has implications for the

entire development sector.

Clearly, in cases such as this, a political calculation has been made. It is easier

for the state to continue to provide services free of charge than it is to force

communities to take responsibility for their own development. Actions such as

this blur the distinction between market orientated development and welfare, and

make it very difficult to understand just how committed DWAF is to community

orientated development. The point here is simple: unless DWAF can afford to

subsidise operating costs on an ongoing basis (which it clearly is not able to do),

ad hoc interventions of this ilk are counter productive and are motivated purely by

short term political expediency. It is here that the greatest potential danger of the

promise to provide `free' water lies: unless the South African state is able to show

how it is able to afford to do this, how and who is going to manage the provision

of such water, and which alternative services will be cut to pay for the `free' water,

such promises run the serious risk of becoming a cruel joke at the expense of the

rural poor. Furthermore, the government needs to explain how the provision of

free services affects its widely professed commitment to the user pays principle.

This is the conflict between political and socio economic objectives referred to earlier,

which rest uneasily with one another and in their own way impact negatively on

government's capacity to implement its policies.

PART THREE

3.1 Capacity shortcomings

One of the primary functions of the DWAF is to assist local and provincial

government in developing the competencies needed to provide adequate water

and sanitation services. According to the Water Services Act, 1997 (108 of 1997),

this responsibility for service provision lies with local government. More

Stephen Louw

107

generally, the ambit of local government responsibility has been increased

progressively since 1994, and councils are now required to develop ongoing

systems of community participation and to involve a variety of relevant

stakeholders in the formulation of council policy and Integrated Development

Plans (IDPs).39 To this end, local government functions as a water services

authority. The institution or body involved in the actual supply of water is thewater services provider, which is accountable to the water services authority. In

many former `white towns' and developed areas, the water services provider is

either the local government itself, or a separate institution such as a water board

or, more recently, a private sector company.

For the first few years (roughly 1994±1996), DWAF assisted rural communities

by implementing projects itself, but this simply bypassed the problem as councils

were given an excuse to avoid building the critical competencies they now

desperately require. As responsibility for these projects is transferred to local

government, their viability is being threatened by these shortcomings. Despite the

tremendous advances that have been made in the establishment of rural localgovernment structures (especially through district/regional councils), little

institutional capacity exists at this level, and neither rural nor peri urban councils

are able to fulfil the functions of either a water service authority or water service

provider. For the most part, local government structures are still hopelessly weak

and ineffective, run by hugely inexperienced councillors and apartheid era

bureaucrats,40 and are hamstrung by a combination of a chronic lack of support

from provincial and central government and crippling service boycotts.

In general, most smaller local councils lack the capacity either to formulate or

implement developmental plans. In many cases, a majority of the long serving

officials have either left the council or are likely to leave once their pensions aredue. This skills flight will undoubtedly increase with the enforcement of the

Employment Equity Act (although in the long term this will expand the pool of

skilled professionals) and with the lifting of the (1995±2000) moratorium on civil

service retrenchments. In nearly all rural and smaller urban councils, the bulk of

the councillors lack financial and administrative skills, and are often at the mercy

of officials unsympathetic to their policies. To date, councils have had little

success in addressing these shortcomings, whilst opportunities for career

advancement in the private sector and at higher levels of government contribute

to a steady out flow of competencies. These problems are getting worse.

A related problem is that many officials and councillors are disinclined to thinkof development in anything other than technical terms and are accordingly loath

to embrace the community orientated ethos of the community water supply and

sanitation programme. Thus water supply and sanitation are conceived narrowly

as engineering problems involving the laying of pipes and building of dams rather

than developmental challenges which require the council to build relations with

community structures, and to put into place plans that are indeed `demand led'.

For example, it is clear that councils have limited budgets with which to satisfy


108

ever expanding needs. By involving communities directly, it becomes possible to

make informed choices about community preferences, desired (and affordable)

service levels and technology choices, among other things. A community that

understands the financial implications of choosing a VIP sanitation system, for

example, is less likely to refuse to accept a non water borne sanitation system, as

is often the case and more likely to accept its responsibility for the costs entailed.

This is precisely what is implied by the switch to `demand led' development, both

in terms of the formulation of informed choices and in terms of the taking of

important developmental decisions.

This poses a key problem, in that until councillors come to accept the basic

assumptions informing the community water supply and sanitation programme,

there is little chance that local government will play a meaningful role in

delivering water and sanitation services to underdeveloped areas. The author's

interviews with a variety of councillors and community leaders suggest that, even

when councils are committed to this objective, there is considerable uncertainty

as to how their responsibilities should be discharged, or where the lines of

responsibility between Council and community are to be drawn.41 Councils in

rural and peri urban areas have very little (if any) information as to what is

actually happening on the ground in water and sanitation projects. Interviews

with development practitioners and government officials present a similar

picture.42

Finally, in a very real sense, local government councillors are often one of the

biggest obstacles to the community water supply and sanitation programme.

Councillors, eager to impress their constituencies and get re elected, often raise

false expectations by promising high service levels and sophisticated water and

sanitation systems, which are seldom feasible or practical, and are seldom willing

to take action against people who refuse to pay for services. In many cases,

councillors have actually told communities not to make contributions to

developmental projects, as `government will pay'.43 This makes it extremely

difficult to pursue an approach to development based on the principles of cost

recovery and community ownership.

CONCLUSION

The implications of recent policy commitments

In summary, it is clear that the government intends to involve communities more

actively in development. Not only are they expected to initiate water projects, but

the management of these projects is supposed to involve close relationships

between the service authority, service provider, and community structures.

However, the concept of demand led development has clearly not been under

stood in the same terms, or embraced with equal enthusiasm, by all actors in the

sector. Understandable pressures on government to overcome the inequities of the

Stephen Louw

109

past in as short a period as possible, as well as a continued tendency to confuse

development in the water and sanitation sector with the provision of welfare,

often mitigate against the acceptance of demand led development as a principle

and contribute to an over emphasis on top down delivery. Throughout the

country, politicians continue to promise communities that they will receive high

levels of service at a minimal charge; whilst local government structures are

seldom willing or able to disconnect water supply for non payment. These and

other related practices fly in the face of stated government policy towards the

sector, and mitigate against the success of the community water supply and

sanitation programme. In a broader context, they also cast aspersions on the

government's commitment to fiscal austerity and sound commercial manage

ment.

Once again, it is important to stress that the community water supply and

sanitation programme does not celebrate cost recovery tout court, and there is

nothing in the terms of either it or the GEAR macroeconomic programme which

forbids subsidies and other forms of ongoing state support for developmental

projects. Neither do these policies reject state intervention in emergency

circumstances, for example, through the provision of a certain amount of free

water in drought stricken areas or in areas with a high cholera risk. The issue is

that policies must be carried out consistently, free from opportunistic electioneer

ing and political interference. A very large part of the `gap' between the policy

commitments of government and the failures in implementation can be traced to

this dangerous populism.

Any assessment of the South African government's performance since 1994

must take this criticism into account. Unlike `developing countries' elsewhere,

South Africa is starting to recover from the tremendous setbacks of the `Asian

crises' of 1997 and 1998, although mounting international concerns about the

Mbeki government's commitment to good governance and the rule of law means

that this recovery is tentative at best. In this context, the ability of the South

African state to create conditions which are propitious for development, on the

one hand, but which do not crowd out investment and undermine investor

confidence on the other, is the cruel yardstick against which government

performance will be measured. Within these narrow confines, the idea of

demand led development offers the space to explore ways of empowering

ordinary people and to ensure that whatever resources the state spends are used in

a manner that gives them the social and institutional capacity to formulate and act

on their own `demand'. The evidence to date suggests that the South African

government is committed theoretically to the developmental paradigm shift upon

which this policy rests, but that it lacks the political will to carry this out in a

consistent manner.44 This gap, between the proclaimed policy of DWAF and its

implementation needs to be addressed urgently if the benefits of post apartheid

transformation are to be enjoyed by anyone other than the urban eÂ lite.


110

NOTES

1 In preparing this article, I have benefited greatly from the assistance and

advice of Ned Breslin, Bethuel Netshiswenze and Ilse Wilson.

2 The South African Human Rights Commission has identified `gross

ineptitude among heads of government departments' as the primary factor

hampering service delivery, a finding based in part on the fact that only 15

out of 68 government departments were able to submit annual protocol

reports to the commission last year. One department (of Health, in the

Eastern Cape), was found to have fraudulently re submitted their 1998±1999

report in an effort to hide its lack of capacity (Esbend:2001:34). Protocol

reports are used to determine provincial budget allocations.

3 The politicisation of the civil service and its impact on government

performance deserves a separate study. A startling example of this trend is

provided by the Minister for Agriculture and Land Affairs, Thoko Didiza,

who has sidelined or attempted to transfer to menial jobs nearly all of the

senior appoints made by her predecessor, Derek Hanekom.

4 Although the promise of `free water' is discussed here, it is, at the time of

writing, too early to know what the actual policy implications of this are.

Until full details of how this is to operate are announced, it is assumed that

DWAF remains committed to the market orientated principles outlined in

the text.

5 In some communities, it is possible for individual households to purchase a

`household connection', that is to say, a standpipe located within their own

garden. Although this is a popular option, it has not taken off in a big way

yet, due largely to constraints on the amount of available water and

household budgets.

6 Defined as a ventilated improved pit, or VIP, toilet.

7 The point, it is worth noting, is not to try and refashion the electoral or the

socio economic system so as to isolate government from popular pressures,

as is proposed, for example, by F A Hayek in his critique of the electoral

political cycle (Hayek 1960). This `anti politics' is at the heart of what is

often described as 'neo liberalism' (Mouffe 1981). Rather, government has to

steer a delicate balance between resisting populist pressures for greater

special interest group spending, whilst at the same time retaining sufficient

electoral support to implement the longer term programmes needed to satisfy

both domestic and international developmental requirements. This latter

concern, which is structural ± integration into a world economy (globalisa

tion) the structure of which is determined increasingly by the commodity

form ± means that the conception of politics and democracy advanced here is

not strictly Schumpeterian.

8 The DWAF annual review (1999±2000) cites a more modest 4 847 451 users

in 236 completed projects, having created 323 764 jobs (DWAF 2000).

Stephen Louw

111

9 Notably the Water Services Act, 1997 (Act 108 of 1997) and the National

Water Act, 1998 (Act 36 of 1998). Legislation on sanitation is less developed

and the 1996 draft National Sanitation White Paper is still under review.

10 This is documented extensively in a series of AusAid evaluations, and by the

Mvula Trusts `revisiting' project. See also DWAF (1997b).

11 The Mvula Trust and DWAF have recently developed, with the support of the

European Union, a community based monitoring and evaluation programme

that will, it is hoped, assist community structures in managing more

efficiently existing water schemes and in facilitating information flows

between community structures and local government (Mvula 2000).

12 For a useful study on the ìmpact of local government on rural development

in South Africa', see Galvin (1999).

13 Personal communication with the senior person concerned. Name kept

confidential for obvsious reasons.

14 At this conference DWAF made it very clear that, although it accepted some

of the criticism, it was not going to change its modus operandi. Minister

Asmal, after drawing attention to his critics' racial background, made it clear

that he would continue to fast track technical delivery and skip crucial

community empowerment stages of water projects in order to deliver rapidly

(personal recollection). For a brief overview of the material presented to the

conference, see Lodge (1999:34±35).

15 This unsatisfactory term is used to denote a category of what might broadly

be called the `socialist left' whose àlternatives' to existing government policy

reduce very quickly to a call for simple state paternalism rather than

community initiative. The South African Municipal Workers Union is

perhaps the best examples of this approach.

16 Despite this sentiment, research suggests that the users in these schemes are

unwilling (or unable) to pay for more than seven to ten litres of water per

person per day.

17 Generally, communities are encouraged either to close down or remove

existing handpumps so as to force ùsers' to rely on new government water

schemes. In at least three villages known to the author, DWAF actually

removed the handpumps themselves so as to enforce compliance with the

new project. In the absence of safe alternative sources, the indigent are

effectively forced to use unprotected water sources.

18 Anonymous informant, 2000.

19 The Mvula Trust initially required communities to contribute 82 per cent

towards the start up costs, but they were forced by DWAF to abandon this

approach.

20 The main cost involved is the payment for electricity or fuel, as well as (at

least in bigger schemes) the salaries of core pesonnel responsible for running

and maintaining the project. In most cases, this includes a technical operator,


112

as well as the core of the committee (e.g. chairperson, secretary and

bookeeper).

21 The author's fieldwork in various successful and unsuccessful water projects

suggests that residents place an extremely high value on household

reticulation and are willing to prioritise this expenditure over nearly all

other expenses and possible improvements to their living environment. The

benefit of this to the water supply committees in each village is that cost

recovery is much greater when there are household connections.

22 For a critical account of some of these assumptions and their impact on

infrastructure investment decisions, see Hosking and Bond (2000).

23 I owe this definition to Mr Charles Reeve, Team leader, European Union

Support Programme Team for Department of Water Affairs and Forestry.

Personal communication, 2000.

24 This conception of the role of the state is analogous to that set out in the

seminal World Bank development report of 1997. This marked a dramatic shift

within the World Bank, away from a simplistic laissez faire conception of state

policy towards a more dynamic model of state±market relations. Sadly, the

report is not always representative of World Bank opinion, although see

Wolfensohn (1999:4±5) for an emphatic defence of the need for the state to

develop the social relations within which markets can best function.

25 The author's own field work in four rural villages and three urban slums in

South India confirms this.

26 The periodisation of development discourse here and below is taken from

Ebrahim (2001).

27 The inability of local government to fulfil these functions is one of the main

reasons why DWAF initially played a role as implementing agent on water

projects. This is in the process of changing, and local government is being

expected to take this responsibility on board.

28 In two successful projects visited by the author ± Lekubu village and

Leeufontein village ± the implementing agent (then the North West Water

Supply) built offices from which the committee could work. This has paid

enormous dividends in terms of developing a culture of institutional

accountability (they are always accessible to the community, whose monies

they administer) and in terms of promoting professional management (they

see themselves as part of a formal, professional organisation, are able to keep

proper files and records, etc.) There are no magic formulas for success and in

both villages the committees (or water authorities, as they call themselves)

are run by exceptionally dedicated people and are supported in positive ways

by the traditional authorities. However, the small cost of the office, when

offset against the fact that both projects are recovering costs and are

sustainable, is an important lesson to be learnt.

29 The most influential adherent to this position is the South African Municipal

Stephen Louw

113

Workers Union (SAMWU). For an argument along similar lines, see Ruiters

and Bond (1999).

30 This requirement is not restricted to the water and sanitation sector.

Increasingly, local government is expected to play an active role in assisting

all South African communities, urban and rural, to assess and prioritise their

needs. Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) drawn up by councils must

incorporate these assessments.

31 In effect, this last mentioned concern has become a moot point, as

communities have been inundated with politicians and consultants, each

promising to help deliver water services as quickly and as cheaply as

possible. Several Mvula staff officers reported that soon after the introduction

of the Community Water Supply and Sanitation Programme they found that

community representatives would arrive at their offices, presenting detailed

accounts of why their community wanted a particular water project and

providing much of the information necessary to justify selection of the

project. Such information clearly did not emerge from within `the com

munity'. Instead, consultants had approached the community, told them

about the possibility of obtaining developmental support and offered to help

secure this (at a price!).

32 On central government interference in large scale water projects, see Emmett

and Hagg (2001).

33 In theory, this means that service charges will be levied at all points in the water

cycle, and water services are expected to become self financing. However, an

exception is made (but never spelt out clearly) for communities too poor to

make even a minimal contribution towards the provision of basic services.

34 Evidence gathered in many communities suggests that projects delivering

potable water to community standpipes (as opposed to individual household)

connections) are not always an immediate priority. Given a choice,

respondents (particularly male respondents) suggests that they would prefer

to collect water from communal hand pumps, and spend their money on

other things.

35 Two independent sources have confirmed this story.

36 Interview with Ned Breslin, Mvula Trust, Johannesburg, January 1998.

37 Information gathered in field visit to Thulani Water Project, Mpumalanga

Province, 15±16 March 1999.

38 See note 4 above.

39 See, for example, chapters 4 and 5 of the Local government municipal system Bill(RSA 2000), and the White Paper on local government (1998).

40 The mere fact that officials were appointed in the apartheid era is not in itself

an indication of political dissidence on their part, as is often quite

simplistically alleged. The concern is rather that these officials were part of

the homeland apparatus, performed ill defined jobs on an ad hoc basis and


114

worked for government structures lacking any real business plan or

managerial expertise. Since 1994, the `redeployment' of such officials, many

of whose jobs were protected under the terms of the constitution until 2000,

has constituted a major headache for government. For the most part, these

officials lack the skills required to perform their jobs properly.

41 The field work was conducted over a period of two and a half years (1998±

2000) in the following villages: Mashilane and Nhlazatshe (Mpumalanga);

Lekuba, Leeufontein and Kabe (North West); Rotterdam and Fairley

(Northern Province). Additional field work was conducted in the Winterveld

(Gauteng) in 2001. This was supplemented with a number of interviews with

councillors and officials in the aforementioned areas.

42 Bokgupa, Lebogang. Field Worker, Operation Hunger, Mafikeng, 16 February

1999; Fernandez, Placid. Chief Engineer, DWAF: North West Province,

Mafikeng, 15 February 1999; Jackson, Barry. Development Bank of SouthernAfrica, Midrand, November 1997; Kleinschmidt, Horst. Director, Mvula Trust,

Johannesburg, 26 January 1998; Madgwick, Tim. Head: Training, UmgeniWater, Pietermaritzburg, 20 October 1997; Magashlela, Ignatus. Monitoring

and Evaluation Coordination, DWAF Northern Province, Pietersburg, 10 March

1999; Masibi, Gadifele. Community Trainer and Evaluator, Copad Engineering, Mafikeng, 15 February, 1999; Matabule, Jabulani. Sanitation Coordina

tion, DWAF Northern Province, Pietersburg, 11 March 1999; Mkize,

Nonhlanhla. Training Specialist and Materials Developer, Rand Water

Community Water Based Projects Department, Johannesburg, 11 December

1997; Nkuna, Vusi. Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist, Mvula Northern

Province, Pietermaritzburg, 11 March 1999; Nkunea, Gibson. CEO, Bushbuck

ridge Water Board, Bushbuckridge, 18 March,1999; Peto, Tselane. Trainer and

Evaluator, Independent Consultant, Mafikeng, 16 February 2000. (Interview

conducted jointly with Bethuel Netshiswinzhe).

43 This has been reported to the author in several communities, notably in the

Northern and Mpumalanga provinces.

44 The same point can be made about privation and deregulation, central

components of GEAR upon which most of the government's developmental

programmes now depend. Much of the decline in investor confidence in

South Africa stems from the reluctance of government to carry out the

politically unpopular components of its own policy commitments. The

damage done to the South African economy by the failure timeously to

deregulate the telecommunications industry, for example, is inestimable.

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