Africa's water investment pledge faces skills gap challenge

Image credit: Hanbyul Jeong on Unsplash

We’re not saying that infrastructure investment is not critical or welcome, but without the right skills, it’s an exercise in futility.

Infrastructure & Utilities

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Capacity and skills

Days before the summit, President Cyril Ramaphosa presided over the opening of the new System 5A Water Purification Plant at Rand Water’s Zuikerbosch Station in Vereeniging.

The plant adds 600 million litres of potable water per day to the system – enough to supply 2.4 million people.

“We are celebrating the completion of a vital piece of infrastructure, and we are affirming our shared commitment to the people of South Africa to continuously provide clean, reliable and safe water,” he said.

It’s a commitment that needs to be supported by sufficient capacity and skills.

Capacity speaks of the right mix of people, processes and policies within organisations responsible for water, but skills are about the people themselves possessing standards-based talent to perform their duties effectively.

There must be ample skills in three main categories — leadership, management across the various departments, and technical skills within the water department itself.

Each is equally important and supports the others to form a dependency chain.

Leaders in the water sector are not necessarily water experts.

They are counsellors, decision-makers, finance managers and other managers in support departments outside the technical water department.

So, they depend on the expertise of technical professionals.

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Resistance to regulation

Regulation 3630, gazetted on 3 June 2023, requires that water services works be supervised by at least a Class V process controller.

Professionals of this class and above must register with WISA, meet its membership standards, and pursue continuous professional development (CPD) as required.

Lower classes must also undergo continued education independently.

Yet, there is a lot of resistance to the regulation.

Most process controllers work in municipalities and, although they knew they had until 1 July 2025 to register, many have not complied.

It comes from a combination of ignorance, unnecessary budgetary resistance by the powers that be, and the individuals themselves.

Councillors, municipal managers, politicians and others in charge don’t want to spend money, although the cost of training is comparatively low.

Individuals may fear that they don’t meet the standard or may not be able to maintain it going forward.

These concerns are unnecessary – you spend less on maintaining skills than on maintaining broken infrastructure and processes, and professionalisation is not an obstacle but a career enhancer.

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Accountability, transparency and performance

Regulation 3630 promises to enhance accountability, transparency and performance within the water sector - something many process controllers want.

They are finally being acknowledged as professionals, like engineers and scientists in the industry already are.

The well-known Blue Drop and Green Drop reports also draw a direct correlation between municipality performance and their capacity.

So, yes, water investment is welcome, but people are just as critical as pipes and plants, and South Africa must invest in both to secure water resilience.

I invite municipalities and process controllers to open a dialogue with WISA to air their concerns and understand the true benefits of professionalisation.