In the wake of the release last month of the National Water Action Plan (NWAP) by President Cyril Ramaphosa, Consulting Engineers South Africa’s (Cesa) has warned that infrastructure investment and institutional reform will only deliver results if South Africa urgently closes the technical skills gap in its water and wastewater sector.

In line with this, the organisation is calling on national and provincial governments, municipalities, water boards and the private sector partners implementing the NWAP to incorporate structured, ongoing technical training into all phases of the rollout, from the immediate stabilisation of failing systems to the long-term institutional reforms the National Water Crisis Committee (Watercom) has been mandated to drive.

The plan, which sets out short-, medium- and long-term interventions to address the country's escalating water crisis, identifies an inappropriate delivery model, including the absence of ring-fenced water revenues and diffused accountability between billing, revenue collection and technical departments, as the root causes of failing services in many municipalities.

“The plan has correctly diagnosed the institutional and financial failures behind the crisis, but no amount of ring-fencing or reform will hold water if there are not enough competent people to run the plants, maintain the assets and make sound engineering decisions on the ground,” said Cesa CEO Chris Campbell.

“Government has done the hard work of naming the disease. Ring-fenced revenue, clear accountability, private sector investment, are the prescriptions required.”

However, municipal reform will be fruitless without qualified process controllers on shift at the treatment works, employees on site that understand hydraulic design and workers able to troubleshoot a failing plant.

Campbell referenced the example of State-owned power utility Eskom during the persistent periods of loadshedding, where fixing the institution bought time, however, it was the engineering and operational capability that made the “real difference” in ensuring consistent and stable electricity supply.

“We cannot dismiss the realities of the unfortunate reduced industrial demand, combined with residential, commercial and mining houses all implementing various forms of self-help renewable-energy systems for their own energy security, all of which have contributed to the lesser demand on Eskom. Water needs exactly the same discipline, technically, operationally and financially through demand and supply management as a water scarce country,” he said.

He pointed to a direct correlation between the decline in South Africa's Blue Drop and Green Drop performance and the loss of technical skills from municipalities over the past three decades.

Engineers, technicians, technologists and process controllers who left or retired from public sector were not replaced and incumbents, if available, were never adequately trained in the first place.

“Reversing this trend requires sustained, practical, engineering-led skills development, not short-term interventions on the eve of looming local government elections. The warning lights had come on more than two decades ago and just as in the case of our energy crisis, we kicked the can down the road up to now.”

While the NWAP provides the institutional architecture to arrest the decline, the plan’s success will depend on whether capacity and competency development are treated as core, critical elements, and not cut when budgets tighten, Campbell added.

Recovering the sector will require a pipeline of competent, professionally registered local practitioners who can take responsibility for these assets and keep them operating for the next 30 years and beyond.

“Skills development is therefore not separate from the water response. It is one of the foundations on which the response must be built. The long-term success of the NWAP will ultimately be measured by whether the infrastructure and institutional improvements remain functional and effective over time,” Campbell concluded.