The Breede Water Management Area is situated in the south-western corner of South Africa. CEO Phakamani Buthelezi speaks about recent developments at the organisation and the way forward in 2014/15.

It derives its name from the largest river within its boundaries, the Breede River. The WMA (Water Management Area) is bounded by the Indian and Atlantic oceans to the south, the Olifants/Doorn WMA in the north-west, the Berg WMA in the west and the Gouritz WMA in the east. It falls entirely within the Western Cape province.

Established in November 2007, the Breede Overberg Catchment Management Agency (BOCMA) is the second CMA to become operational in South Africa. The CMA was established in line with the intent of the National Water Act of 1998. It is the lead agent for the water resources management within the Breede-Overberg CMA. BOCMA plays a key role in protecting, developing, conserving, managing and controlling water resources.

The Gouritz region was recently incorporated in its mandate. Please explain in detail what this means to the organisation moving forward
The amalgamation came after the former Minister of the Department of Water Affairs, Edna Molewa, approved the expansion of the boundary and area of operation of BOCMA in terms of Section 78(4) of the National Water Act, 1998 (Act No 36 of 1998). The area of operation of the Breede-Gouritz Catchment Management Agency includes the previous Breede-Overberg Water Management Area and the Gouritz catchment.

The mandate of the Breede-Gouritz CMA is to manage water resources in the Breede- Overberg and -Gouritz areas and to improve service delivery and sustainability of water resources. Amongst other things, the Breede-Gouritz CMA will continue to ensure water quality for all people and the environment, ensure good administration of water registration and licensing, promote economic growth in a sustainable way and also address development need of the people and contribute to the eradication of poverty.

What is the biggest challenge currently facing the organisation?
Managing organisational change and ensuring that the transition is embraced by all workers to ensure that service delivery is not hampered in any way. This does not only pertain to employees, but stakeholders as well.

How to you aim to overcome these?
We will have a three-pronged approach and will focus on proper research and planning, regular engagements with employees and stakeholders, giving feedback on issues of concern as well as the maximum participation by water users.

What are some of the historic challenges being faced?
Historical social inequalities have resulted in the uneven development regionally and between households coupled to stressed water resources. Another area of concern is that the aquatic ecosystem’s health in parts of the system is under stress and rapidly deteriorating and of major concern is the incomplete water resource and water-use data.

Please expand on the organisational success and your vision for the future
The biggest and most memorable success of the CMA is the organisation’s continuous attainment of receiving an unqualified audit report.

We also introduced a partnership agreement that involves a sister organisation in Namibia, namely the Olushandja Sub-Basin Management Committee. It remains our conviction that the best way to promote sound water resources management principles is through working and sharing lessons with other organisations within SADC and Africa at large. The vision of the organisation as well as the project can be summed up as follows.

The Breede-Overberg Catchment Management Agency manages water resources at a regional or catchment level to involve local communities. It is also functioning within the parametres of the Public Finance Management Act. The internal control systems at BGCMA are sound and geared towards running the organisation as a first-class business entity.

The agency is a body corporate and has the powers of a natural person of full capacity. This governing board is a composition of representatives from different interest groups:

• emerging farmers
• Western Cape provincial government
• water, environmental civil society/NGOs
• civil society
• industry and business
• commercial agriculture
• statutory conservation and environment
• access to water by the poor/rural settlements
• potential agricultural water use by emerging farmers
• commercial agriculture: groundwater
• local government: integrated planning
• commercial agriculture: surface water scheme

“The above-mentioned team has the mantle to keep the boat stable and to steer BGCMA to even higher grounds”, says CEO Phakamani Buthelezi. Although BGCMA receives seed funding from the National Treasury through the Department of Water Affairs, BGCMA may also raise funds required by it for the purpose of exercising any of its powers and carrying out any of its duties in terms of the National Water Act.

It is against this backdrop that BGCMA calls for interested donors to fund some of its empowerment and capacity-building programmes within the Breede-Overberg catchment area for the following projects:
• validation and verification of
the water-use project
• removal of invasive alien vegetation
• riparian rehabilitation
• Adopt-a-River
• empowerment
• water quality monitoring.