At last year’s 75th IMESA Conference, when addressing the topic of the future of municipal engineering in South Africa, I identified what I referred to as the ‘Seven Pillars of Sustainability’.

These can be listed as follows:

1. 1.    morals and ethics
2. 2.    asset management
3. 3.    skills
4. 4.    political stability
5. 5.    sound governance
6. 6.    financial stability
7. freedom from corruption.

I recently read a report in The Mercury newspaper that stated: “The auditor general, Terence Nombembe, has criticised the government and public servants for a weakening of the pillars of governance protecting South Africa’s democracy.”

In the article Nombembe was further quoted as saying: “Things are serious and they areeven more serious than we thought they were. They are more serious because the people whoare employed by government to do work are the least prepared and equipped to do it – the situation is dire.”

The article also stated Nombembe’s office would soon release the audit results for local municipalities, and he expressed his dismay about them.

The pillars mentioned above are interlinked and are an important part of the employer/employee relationship inmunicipalities. This same relationship should exist between a municipality and its ratepayers and residents – an important fact that is all too often forgotten. A council is elected to serve the interests of its electors and in order to implement the policies on which it has been elected, it employs officials and workers. It is the duty of both the politicians and the officials to implement policy and to provide services in the most efficient manner possible, using the resources the ratepayers have provided. That fact that this is a relationship of trust, dependant on a moral and ethical attitude from all roleplayers, is obvious. That this trust is often abused in present-day South Africa is equally clear; hardly a day goes by without a report in the press of corruption, incompetence, failures in capacity and other betrayals of the ratepayers’ trust.

We have to ask what it says to the populationwhenour largest city routinely receives a qualified audit report, and the capital of our most populous province cannot manage and maintain some of its infrastructure.

More importantly, what can we as a professional body do to move our municipalities to a position of financial probity and, furthermore, to earn the faith and trust of the public? I think we need to look at the pillars that I have listed and acknowledge that all of them flow from the first: Morals and ethics.

I believe that for IMESA, as with all professional organisations, morals and ethics are fundamental core values. I also believe that as a body of professionals, we are well-positioned to exercise influence in this area. As an organisation and as individuals, we need to demand from our members, our municipalities and all the officials and suppliers with whom we have contact, nothing short of total honesty in the areas of governance, asset management and accounting, only then can we hope to approach the goals of freedom from corruption and financial stability. We need to be courageous and rigorous in monitoring, and if necessary reporting, – all areas where corruption is suspected or conduct falls short of accepted standards.

In short, I believe that we can make a difference.