Drew Forrest
Water cut-offs in parts of Cape Town have risen sevenfold since 1999 and huge disparities persist in spending on services for white and black Capetonians, according to newly released research.
The study, by Canadian academics David McDonald and Laila Smith, finds particularly glaring racial imbalances in capital spending on water and waste disposal.
In 1999-2000, 10 times more was spent on upgrading and expanding water services in affluent white Durbanville than in poor black Khayelitsha, it says.
It quotes a senior city manager as saying the planned corporatisation of water and sanitation will raise tariffs by between 30% and 50%. “Corporatisation” implies the creation of ring-fenced utilities run on business lines.
The study, Privatising Cape Town, is a product of the Municipal Services Project, which also involves the South African Municipal Workers Union.
McDonald and Smith say their figures are the first attempt to collect city-wide statistics on the distribution of municipal resources. They find that in the last fiscal year:
lthe council spent R11 on water provision per resident of Khayelitsha, as against R86 per Durbanville resident;
lcapital spending on water infrastructure in Khayelitsha stood at 67c per resident, compared with R100 per Durbanville resident;
leach water worker in Khayelitsha served 90000 residents, as compared with 2368 residents of Durbanville. With regards to managers/supervisors, the ratio was about 56000 to 9000.
According to the researchers, water cut-offs in the Cape Town and Tygerberg substructures both under African National Congress control rose from about 11000 in 1999 to 75000 a year later. Coloured townships were hardest hit.
The research highlights the credit control bind in which Cape Town authorities find themselves. Outstanding debts on water and sewerage stood at R516-million in late 2001 close to a quarter of all service debts.
At the same time, cut-offs were being largely negated by illegal reconnections. Of the 87000 disconnections in Tygerberg between 1996 and 2001, 52000, or 60%, were reconnected.
Senior Cape metro official Mike Marsden said there were no plans to corporatise services, in the sense of creating “hands off” companies, or to privatise. The city was following Durban by creating internal business units under council control, to make cost assessment easier.
The aim was to integrate services on an equitable basis, with common service levels and tariffs.