The Development Bank of South Africa is at the forefront of an initiative to tackle the daunting lack of skills faced by underperforming municipalities.
DBSA CEO Jeanette Nhlapo said its main drive is to make sure these troubled municipalities have access to engineers, project managers, financial experts and development planners so they can get their infrastructure development project up and running.
The siyenza manje (we are doing it now) initiative was launched by government in June last year and aims to complement Project Consolidate, which identified underperforming municipalities to provide them with assistance. The DBSA was allocated R741-million by the national Treasury over a three-year period and has been tasked with using these funds to develop capacity in troubled municipalities.
Nhlapo said experts have already been deployed to 67 municipalities and the DBSA aims to have another 23 experts deployed by April.
She said the initial focus of the project is on sanitation and water infrastructure. Siyenza manje is crucial to the government meeting its targets of delivering proper sanitation to all South Africans by next year, and running water to all by 2010.
To meet the demand for experienced professional engineers the DBSA has formed an alliance with the South African Institute of Civil Engineers and is advertising throughout the country to recruit skilled professionals.
Treasury’s Nungisa Fuzime said it is targeting retired engineers and those who may have left the country. The DBSA is looking at partnering young professionals with experienced engineers for the purposes of skills transfer.
‘There may be young graduates who have academic qualifications but no practical experience,†says Fuzime. ‘They may not be able to function at 100%, so we partner them with an experienced person.â€
Case studies
Matjabeng: Free State Province
Thanks to siyenza manje’s allocation of a qualified engineer to the Matjabeng municipality, it no longer has to rely on a linguistics academic to manage its infrastructure projects.
Charles Mavhungi said when he arrived in May last year, none of the municipalities’ 2006/07 infrastructure projects had been registered with the department of provincial and local government.
‘The planning process was very behind,†said Mavhungi. ‘Implementation of projects should have already begun in April.â€
He said the person who had previously headed the project had no idea how to manage infrastructure projects.
The situation is a lot healthier now, with 78 projects currently being implemented at a cost of R193-million. Mavhungi claims that 80% of the projects involve water and sanitation, with 22 of these aimed at eradicating the bucket system.
The municipality aims to have all 78 projects from the 2006/07 financial year completed by July, as well as an additional eight projects from the 2007/08 financial year.
‘If we achieve our target we will be the first municipality in the Free State to eradicate the bucket system,†said Mavhungi.
OR Tambo: Eastern Cape
Another person singing the praises of the DBSA is Sidwell Maqoko, the water services transfer manager from OR Tambo municipality in the Eastern Cape.
Maqoko said the OR Tambo municipality was in desperate need of help, with 50,5% of its 1,7-million-strong population living without running water and 58,7% without access to sanitation.
He said the municipality had young, energetic graduates working for it, but that they lacked experience. The DBSA’s assignment of two experienced engineers to the eight-municipality district in the middle of last year has made all the difference.
Maqoko said 177 water and sanitation projects had been identified for completion over the next three-years. Fifty-one of these are already under way, with another R586-million worth of projects set for implementation by March.
He said before the engineers arrived in the district the municipality’s lack of experts meant that 92 technical reports were wwaiting for evaluation, while tenders could not be evaluated and a number of projects were stagnant.