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Reticulated water supplies to whole communities in the Eastern Cape are being callously sabotaged for greed and profit, according to premier Oscar Mabuyane.
Now private investigators have been hired by the provincial government to unearth the networks between government officials and colluders in the private sphere.
Millions of rands are spilling from municipal coffers into the hands of crime bosses as hundreds of thousands of the poorest people in the province go thirsty and watch their crops and animals die.
Government officials have stated that the constant vandalism of multiple points in the water system is a deliberate strategy orchestrated by criminal syndicates who then deploy collaborators within the municipalities to get them the contracts to repair the havoc.
Leading the critics is Mabuyane, who says water crime in the province is “chronic” and has been happening for a decade.
Addressing a media briefing during an intergovernmental forum he convened in East London a few months ago, the premier alleged that some of the people operating water carting businesses may be the same ones who disrupt the water supply system. “It has always been clear that it is a deliberate disruption because people are in that space of water carting.”
He said criminals working for the water syndicates had infiltrated the government and been appointed to tender committees.
“This started in Nelson Mandela [Bay], this issue of people infiltrating governance and government.”
“I always believe that whatever syndicate operates outside, it has its own sort of network inside, including those whom you think might be threatened because they are in the bid adjudication committees, and all the committees that award the tenders.”
The issue of syndicate-driven vandalism was opened up at the September 13 Premier’s Intergovernmental Forum.The provincial government was presented as the biggest threat to the state’s mandate of providing efficient water reticulation — taps in homes with water running out of them — to the people.
Vandalism of water infrastructure is draining municipal coffers and syndicates have targeted the district municipalities of Amathole, OR Tambo and Chris Hani, as well as the Nelson Mandela Bay and Buffalo City metros.
Addressing the media, MEC Zolile Williams said co-operative governance & traditional affairs (Cogta) had been mulling bringing in private investigators (PIs) to do the intelligence scouring to back up private security hired to defend vandalised plants and pipes.
Cogta said the provincial government had decided to go ahead and hire the PIs.
The problem was that water infrastructure was often in remote areas, where it was easy for thugs to smash and destroy infrastructure undetected.
“Infrastructure that is critical for service delivery is often in outlying areas, far from the people. “We agree, as the province, that Cogta must engage private investigators to do intelligence work in respect of infrastructure vandalism.”
He said the intelligence work of the PIs would be used “to support police services to try to address this issue of sabotaging infrastructure. “It really brings us back [down] in terms of service delivery.”
He said failure of many rural water reticulation systems was “because of collusion between municipal employees and business people”.
“This is what causes schemes and boreholes that are not working to be left lying like that.
“That is corruption at its most extreme and we must stop it.”
He said it was unacceptable that the people who sabotaged boreholes might be “making money by carting water”.
Cogta was aware of plenty of internal skulduggery in municipal water services.
“We have noticed that there is a lot of that going on, especially in the water services in municipalities. “We are looking at that.
“We have private investigators that we are engaging and part of their scope will look into that sabotage of infrastructure like boreholes.”
He said the sabotage would be investigated and promised “people will be arrested”.
In Buffalo City Metro, over three years, vandals attacking water and sanitation infrastructure have spawned a R77m repair bill, which must be paid by ratepayers and taxpayers if they want to keep taps flowing.
OR Tambo municipality spokesperson Zimkhita Macingwane said vandals were causing mayhem in King Sabata Dalindyebo and Nyandeni municipalities.
Large generators, electrical cables, and electrical panels were being hauled away or smashed.
In a year, 15 cases of theft and vandalism were reported to the police in the area. The repair bill would be R20m.
“This financial year we have set aside about R40m for operations and maintenance. “This means that besides general operations and maintenance, the district municipality must also fix the stolen infrastructure.
“In November 2023 we spent more than R240,000 repairing a water scheme for the community of Nohiya area near Qunu. “Hardly a week after the repairs were completed, valuable infrastructure was [again] stolen and vandalised.”
The vandalism repair bill for Amathole district municipality was R8.3m in 2023/2024.
ADM spokesperson Sisa Msiwa said a number of cases of vandalism across the large district had been opened since January, but there had been no arrests or prosecutions.
Plants in Mbhashe, Mnquma, Raymond Mhlaba and Great Kei municipalities had been consistently targeted by vandals this year, she said.
Their destruction included ripping out electrical cables and breaking infrastructure.
After an attack, water supply to communities was “greatly affected”, communities suffered “a great inconvenience” and municipalities struggled to keep the water flowing, she said.
The repair bill ran to more than R7.4m — Mbhashe shelled out R3m, Mnquma, R2m, Great Kei R1m, Ngqushwa R1m and Amahlathi R445,546.
Vandals had so recently attacked the Dutywa water treatment works’ golf course pump station that the repair bill was still being costed.
Last year, ADM hired armed private security guards to protect its water pump stations from destruction.
In a new development, where the gangs encountered resistance, they moved on to other targets.
Msiwa said remote plants that had not been affected were suddenly being attacked.
She said: “The ongoing vulnerability of our municipal water infrastructure threatens our operations, and this threatens the communities.”
She resorted to appealing to law agencies and communities to join them and “take a stand” in the struggle to defend the water and sanitation system.
She said: “We continue to call out to our communities and law enforcement agencies to take a stand with us by collaborating in our defences in an effort to safeguard our water and sanitation infrastructure.”
Once the thugs had raided, it took up to three months to put everything back together.
The issue of repairs has to go through the supply chain process”, which is where tenders are awarded and availability of products assessed.
In eight months, vandals caused R3m damage, of which Nxuba (Cradock) — a vandalism hotspot — would take up R1.3m in repairs, according to CHDM spokesperson Bulelwa Ganyaza.
She said their strategy had been to try to stimulate community awareness on the suffering wrought upon them by the thugs as to why increased security was being brought in to guard the system.
She spoke of how hard it was to protect 500 water supply schemes across the district, including 34 water pump stations and 25 water treatment works. There were another 19 wastewater treatment works and 36 sewer pumpstations to secure.
Ganyaza said Nxuba was under severe and frequent attack and communities were severely affected by interruptions, outages and spillages.
It was suspected that vandals were deliberately trying to destroy pumps by dropping rocks and clumps of clothing into the sewers.
Cables and electrical parts were also being stripped.
Mabuyane said: “This is a problem we have long seen — that it’s not a mistake, particularly in Amathole [district municipality].
“Amathole has been responding [with security measures]. “It’s a question of reinforcing security. Police won’t be able to look after that. They can only investigate cases that are reported.”
“We are looking more on how best [to address it]. “We are looking at other technologies and securities.
“This has been happening. This started in Nelson Mandela [Bay], this issue of people infiltrating governance and government. “For me, you cannot look at that issue outside of white collar crime.
“That’s a problem that we are zooming into as part of anti-corruption — how to clean the system.
“The challenge is systemic; it’s been chronic for years.
“That’s why at some point we began introducing lifestyle audits.
“We are busy rolling those out now to our officials, especially those who are in the supply chain space.”
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