Civil engineering challenges in local government

Limited • Capacity• Funds• Support for technical solutions• Operations, maintenance, asset management• Leadership, discipline, enforcement of

performance or action taken w.r.t. corruption

• Population served ~ 14 million

• Civil engineering professionals ~ 2500 +

• 21 + civil staff per hundred thousand population

• Population served ~ 47 million

• Civil engineering professionals ~ 1300 +

• ~2.8 civil staff per hundred thousand population

Design was inadequate and had to

be redone, 11%

Design (or lack thereof) caused failure of the final product, 6%

Contractor abandoned project as municipality did not pay timeously,

1%

Contractor abandoned the project as he could

not cope, 4%

Halted for other reasons, 1%

Contractor quality was so poor - remedial work required, 7%

Poor quality contracting, 18% Completed

satisfactorily with minor niggles, 51%

Area 2008/09 Annual

Demand (million m3)

2008/09 Non-

Revenue Water (million m3/a)

Estimated Non Revenue Water loss

(R’000)

% of Municipal

Use

Johannesburg

502.7 160.9 R 522.8 32%

Ekurhuleni 326.8 124.2 R 403.6 38% Tshwane 214.2 62.1 R 201.9 29% Emfuleni 77.1 31.6 R 102.7 41% Mogale 26.4 7.1 R 23.2 27% Randfontein

8.7 2.6 R 8.4 30%

Merafong 8.4 2.5 R 8.2 30% Westonaria

6.1 1.8 R 5.9 30%

Lesedi 5.1 1.5 R 4.9 30% Midvaal 9.6 2.9 R 9.3 30% Kungwini 5.3 1.6 R 5.2 30% Nokeng Tsa Taemane

0.0 0.0 R 0.0 0%

Leaking toilets

Leaking pipes

Leaking meters

• Rebuild capacity rather than continual restructuring• Professionalise staff selection rather than politicise• Address financial viability • Standardise and reduce reporting requirements • Responsibility requires authority• Use the private sector • Consider short-, medium- and long-term solutions

• Rebuild structures and develop meaningful organograms

• Put training programme in place to support youth development & develop succession plans

• Change terms and conditions to retain S57 staff unless inadequate performance, rather than terminate in the absence of performance reviews

SAICE HAS DEVELOPED JOB DESCRIPTIONS, TRAINING SAICE HAS DEVELOPED JOB DESCRIPTIONS, TRAINING PLANS AND POLICIES WHICH COULD BE ADOPTED PLANS AND POLICIES WHICH COULD BE ADOPTED

NATIONALLY TO BUILD CAPACITY NATIONALLY TO BUILD CAPACITY

SAICE HAS DEVELOPED TRAINING SYSTEMS AND SAICE HAS DEVELOPED TRAINING SYSTEMS AND CAPACITY WHICH COULD BE HARNESSED NATIONALLY TO CAPACITY WHICH COULD BE HARNESSED NATIONALLY TO

BUILD CAPACITY BUILD CAPACITY

Engineering students graduate as a result of experiential opportunities

Supervising construction of various treatment works

Learning how to survey!

• Develop competence model • Appoint professional, registered, senior officials with

sound track record (MM, CFO, Chief Engineer) • Review selection criteria guidelines from – Profession of Town Clerks Act (Act 75 of 1988)– Municipal Accountants Profession Act (Act 21 of 1988)– Engineering Profession Act (Act 46 of 2000)

PROFESSIONAL BODIES CAN BE HARNESSED TO ASSIST PROFESSIONAL BODIES CAN BE HARNESSED TO ASSIST WITH INTERVIEWS AND SELECTION, RATHER THAN HAVE WITH INTERVIEWS AND SELECTION, RATHER THAN HAVE APPOINTMENTS DICTATED BY POLITICIANS OR EQUITY APPOINTMENTS DICTATED BY POLITICIANS OR EQUITY

TARGETS TO THE EXCLUSION OF COMPETENCE TARGETS TO THE EXCLUSION OF COMPETENCE

• Take a hard line on debt collection– Large percentage of outstanding debtors are the affluent, industry and

public sector– Automatically debit public sector departments and employees

• Make equitable share conditional & review formula to increase income for low income municipalities

• Tackle losses and invest in maintenance • Accelerate efforts on Operation Clean Audit• Corruption must be stamped out

HARNESS PROFESSIONAL BODIES TO ASSIST WITH HARNESS PROFESSIONAL BODIES TO ASSIST WITH NATIONAL AND PROVINCIAL OVERSIGHT COMMITTEES NATIONAL AND PROVINCIAL OVERSIGHT COMMITTEES

FOR FINANCIAL AND PROJECT AUDITS AND MONITORING FOR FINANCIAL AND PROJECT AUDITS AND MONITORING SPENDING OF GRANTS SPENDING OF GRANTS

• Reduce demand for myriads of reports & statistics • Policy vacuum due to abolition of Town Clerk and

Accountants Acts• Develop standard, online reporting systems including:

– Financial reporting formats, guidelines & systems– Project and maintenance reporting formats & systems – Staff reporting formats & systems – Asset registers – Etc• Develop standard– HR, Developer contribution and other policies– Bylaws etc

• Split between Political and Executive roles needs to be considered

• Review delegations - if officials given responsibility must also be given authority

• Allow officials to discipline those who are not performing

• Recognise professional judgement• Support departments must support line

departments and not dictate to them! • Need management and leadership maturity

• Second young staff to consultants to be trained• Private sector to second experienced municipal staff to

local government to rebuild capacity, offer structures and systems, and on-the-job training, or

• Outsource rebuilding of municipal structures to consulting firms (S78 type of approach over say a 5 year period) – condition that senior engineers with municipal experience must be used to manage the rebuilding process

• Work with the MM and be given authority to make the changes

An Engineering Corps:• Set up an engineering corps with experienced engineers to direct

and attend to many strategic and planning issues (suggested by Professor Steven Kelman of Harvard, when the capacity problems were outlined in a meeting with National Treasury)

Panel of consultants:• Appoint a panel of experienced consultants for specialist work

that municipalities can harness without going to tender (Clause 32 of the MFMA)

Develop standards and scopes:• Use pool to assist municipalities with tenders and scopes of work

• Second engineering staff and apprentices to contractors to be trained

• Harness contractors to train SMMEs and communities as part of each major contract so that they can be used for on-going maintenance thereafter

• Adopt-a-town - private sector contracts to adopt-a-town in toto to:

―Address backlogs―Refurbish and rehabilitate―Put operating and maintenance systems and processes in place―Address losses, increase income etc―Build capacity in all departments (technical, financial, HR etc)―Use powerful CEO type of person who has run large businesses in

the past to set up

Tertiary institutions should consider offering:

• National diploma in municipal engineering• Certificates in:• Operations and maintenance • Asset management

• Private sector act as implementing agent• Manage EPWP, must have strong managers– Risk rests with the private sector for quality control– Advantages of staff work for implementing agent• Keeps money in the community • No labour problems• No vandalism

– Training major component• Must have good trainers• Long process

It has been suggested that O&M could largely be outsourced, but that service providers should be franchisees, set up and trained by recognised franchisors, to give municipalities the peace of mind that there is quality control and franchisees have access to expertise in case of challenges which arise beyond their level of expertise