Armed security guards have been hired to protect water systems in one major Eastern Cape municipality — and it is working.
“We can’t carry on spending money on fixing something that was already fixed,” Amathole District Municipality (ADM) mayor Anele Ntsangani said.
Vandalism was being reduced, he told the Dispatch special report team.
Vandals, accused of doing the dirty work of cowardly and wicked water syndicates, are wrecking infrastructure, such as water pumps which cost as much as R300,000 to repair.
In six months, the ransackers had effectively handed ADM and the fiscus a R3m repair bill.
The wanton damage has been going on for years.
Ntsangani said: “Hence the decision to hire private security to guard the infrastructure.
“They come at a high cost, but we have no option. It is better to contract security services.
“The issue of infrastructure vandalism has successfully been minimised,” he said.
ADM was spending more than R1m a month on guarding 10 sites across the district, Ntsangani said.
They were looking at CCTV cameras and alarm systems and comparing these costs with paying for security personnel.
“It is part of finding the means to reduce the costs, because now it is high,” he said.
Premier Oscar Mabuyane, addressing the media in East London recently, said water vandals were a threat to supplying people with water.
He said: “It [vandalism] is a big threat in perfecting and offering an efficient service to our people on water reticulation.
“This is a problem that we have long seen. It is not a mistake, particularly in Amathole, that I have been following around Alice [Dikeni].”
He repeated his accusation that business people in the water carting business were behind the sabotage.
“I think ADM has been responding to that [business crime].
“It is a question of reinforcing security.
“Police will not be able to look after that, they can only investigate cases that are reported,” he said.
He said carting water to people was unsustainable.
He was angry that criminal water carting operations had carried on for a decade.
Cartels had become so entrenched they would “do anything that will make sure that whoever disrupts that, [is not given] a chance”.
“It is sort of a permanent business and so you develop a syndicate”.
He said water cartels had “infiltrated” government, and after starting in Nelson Mandela Bay, had now spread to take hold in bid adjudicating committees which decided on who would get government tenders.
He said syndicates were brazen and knew all about the details of upcoming tenders before competitors.
He said he had received numerous complaints about this insider information cheating.
“That tells you our system has been exposed,” he said.
But his government was zooming in on this corruption which he called “systematic and chronic” and would be cleaning it up.
He believed the lifestyle audit being conducted would flush out criminal collaborators in the “supply chain space”.
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