A South African water expert has warned that continuous restructuring at the Department of Water Affairs and Sanitation could see the recent water crisis that hit Gauteng happening again … and again.

The expert, Anthony Turton who worked previously at the CSIR, believes the water system has been undermined by restructuring at the government department dealing with water affairs since the first democratically elected government took its place in power.

Until recently, the department responsible was called the Department of Environmental and Water Affairs, then it split into the Department of Water Affairs, and more recently it is has been restructured to include sanitation arm – making it the Department of Water Affairs and Sanitation.

“Government needs to accept that restructuring is not the best remedy to institutional dysfunction,” says Turton. “Restructuring will make the delivery of services any better.”

Rand Water chairperson Matshidiso Hashatse says the utility realised it had a problem on its hands when multiple power failures hit its systems in a two-week period. He explains that the reason Rand Water was able to previously survive load shedding without water shortages was because it has a “premium account” with Eskom.

“But there is nothing Eskom can do if cables are stolen,” he maintains.

Other power failures during the water shortage were caused by a combination of several factors.

Turton has taken these explanations to task saying that the water shortages were not a result of “economic crime” but rather a failure of “soft infrastructure”.

“All critical infrastructure like water and energy consists of two components. Hard infrastructure is the actual pumps, pipes and reservoirs; soft infrastructure is the subsystem that connects the flow of data between critical components of the bigger system,” he explains.

“The cumulative shocks to the systems in place have resulted in institutional instability and dysfunction.”