WISA 2020 • #ALLHANDSONDECK
#AllHandsOnDeck for water and sanitation The WISA 2020 Conference & Exhibition took place as a virtual conference from 7 to 11 December under the theme #AllHandsOnDeck.
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peaking to the conference theme, #AllHandsOnDeck, Dan Naidoo, chair of the WISA Board, highlighted the vital need for all local and regional players in both the public and private sectors to work together to address South Africa’s water challenges and implement appropriate solutions. “We have the skills and technologies needed to address our challenges and must now turn our attention to broadening the discourse in the sector to explore the economic, political and behavioural aspects that govern water and sanitation if we are to implement effective and sustainable solutions.” To discuss some of the challenges and solutions, several of South Africa’s leading sector professionals participated in a panel discussion facilitated by Professor Mike Muller, technical chair, WISA.
The skills gap
Dr Allyson Lawless, managing director at SAICE Professional Development and Projects, highlighted the dire need to rebuild South Africa’s technical skills base. Between 2005 and 2015, the number of public sector employees has grown significantly, and is now largely dominated by younger people. “We have lost large numbers of engineers and older people,” said Lawless. The result is limited scheduling of maintenance, limited capacity to address increased challenges due to Covid-19, limited long-term planning, inadequate input by engineers into the budgeting process, limited in-house expertise, limited time available for senior staff to train juniors, and a loss of institutional knowledge, systems and processes. Despite water services being complex and highly technical, there are very few engineers in place and much of the
“There needs to be a recognition by government of the need for technical skills.” Dr Allyson Lawless
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work is being done by young people with little experience in running water service institutions. “There needs to be a recognition by government of the need for technical skills,” Lawless stressed. She highlighted that, despite spending millions on training engineering graduates, there are no posts available to employ them and management posts in technical departments are frequently filled with non-technical people. Furthermore, technical staff have limited authority and do not have the opportunity to input on budget, supply chain and management issues. Lawless called for an end to overbearing procurement legislation, restrictive OSD (occupation-specific dispensation), water losses, non-payment, political interference, and corruption. We must rebuild technical structures with urgency and implement infrastructure-friendly procurement. To achieve this, she called for institutes like WISA, IMESA and SAICE to lobby government for change.
The municipal challenge
Neil Macleod, former head: Water and Sanitation at eThekwini Municipality,
