Last week Cyril Ramaphosa sounded the alarm about South Africa's water crisis. Citing the famous line from Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner about "water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink," he said that "unless we act now, we may not have water anywhere".
The combination of a "decade-long drought", "already over-exploited water systems", and "worsening effects of climate change" confronted the country with a "dire situation". Other causes included "mismanagement and corruption" in the water sector, billing errors, unauthorised usage, and "outright theft". Whether in the building of infrastructure or at municipal level, "serious accountability and governance issues" persisted.
Releasing the government's latest water and sanitation master plan the previous week, the minister of human settlements, water, and sanitation, Lindiwe Sisulu, identified a lack of skilled water engineers as among the other causes of the water crisis. Implementation of the master plan would cost the country nearly R900 billion over the next ten years, she said.
There is nothing new in any of this. What is missing is any acknowledgement by President Ramaphosa of the consequences for the water sector of the implementation of his party's major policies of cadre deployment and racial preferencing, the latter including procurement requirements, affirmative action, and black economic empowerment.
Various water specialists have identified some of these consequences. Qualified officials both black and white have been shunted aside as a succession of ministers have brought in their own top management. The national department multiplied director-level posts, leaving it with layers of managers but nobody to do the work.
Posts in the water sector have been left unfilled rather than having whites appointed to them. Highly-qualified staff, ranging from engineers to microbiologists and ecologists, have been placed under pressure to leave long before retirement age in order to meet transformation targets. Political appointees have been appointed to jobs requiring technocratic skills.