The “Municipal Benchmarking Initiative” report from 2015 – compiled by the SA Local Government Association and the Water Research Commission – found the country didn’t even have 10% of the required number of engineers needed to adequately run the country’s municipal water networks.

There were, according to the findings, just 0.4 engineers to every 100000 people, a far cry from the idea of five per 100000 Saice says South Africa needs.

The report states: “There is a chronic shortage of municipal engineers in South Africa.

“Of great concern is that most municipalities have a significant infrastructure asset value, but do not have the engineering capacity to manage those assets.”

A short-term benchmarking target of 0.9 engineers per 100000 people had been set, a number that the report calls “far from ideal”.

The report found that even if the number of water service technicians were added to the number of water engineers in municipalities, the national average would still only sit at 1.9 per 100000 people, less than half of the ideal ratio.

This emphasised “the significant technical staffing gap that currently exists”, the report found.

Pillay said: “There are absolutely dire consequences. If there are no engineers then nobody is doing any planning – and planning isn’t for a year or two, its 20, 30 or 40 years down the line.”

The shortage meant infrastructure programmes were often not adequate, and that infrastructure was not properly maintained, he added.

–TimesLIVE (Penwell Dlamini and Matthew Savides)