{"id":156936,"date":"2017-02-12T08:59:23","date_gmt":"2017-02-12T06:59:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=156936"},"modified":"2017-02-12T09:11:57","modified_gmt":"2017-02-12T07:11:57","slug":"sa-water-department-is-broke-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/156936\/sa-water-department-is-broke-report\/","title":{"rendered":"SA water department is broke &#8211; report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <span class=\"st\">Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS)<\/span> is reportedly bankrupt, and is struggling to pay contractors because it is R4.3 billion in the red.<\/p>\n<p>According to the City Press, senior executives have advised that Cabinet place the department, which is headed up by\u00a0Nomvula Mokonyane, under administration.<\/p>\n<p>Mokonyane is the former Premier of Gauteng, and was replaced by ANC Secretary David Makhura in May 2014.<\/p>\n<p>The paper noted that the department is facing an investigation by both Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane and the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), for tender and other irregularities, with multi-billion rand projects including the R26 billion Lesotho Highlands Water Project set to be probed.<\/p>\n<p>City Press highlighted several revelations it obtained in confidential emails, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The department has unpaid invoices amounting to R1.7 billion for the current financial year, adding to the unpaid invoices worth R1.1 billion from the prior year.<\/li>\n<li>The Water Trading Entity, a department unit that deals with water sales and rights, has an overdraft of more than R2.6 billion.<\/li>\n<li>A contractor is suing the department for more than R400 million for unpaid invoices.<\/li>\n<li>Critical service delivery projects have stalled due to a lack of funds.<\/li>\n<li>The Giyani project which began with a R500 million budget, has swelled to more than R5 billion &#8216;without tender processes being followed&#8217;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Mokonyane\u2019s spokesperson, Sputnik Ratau, told City Press: \u201cThe department is not broke, as alleged. Out of the R15.5 billion budget allocation for the department, the department has spent R12.6 billion and still has R2.9 billion available.&#8221;\u00a0Ratau also denied that the department had an overdraft.<\/p>\n<p><em>Read the full article in the Sunday 12 February edition of the Sunday Times.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/147049\/weekend-south-africas-water-crisis-is-just-another-tragic-consequence-of-state-capture\/\" target=\"_blank\">South Africa\u2019s water crisis is just another tragic consequence of state capture<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) is reportedly bankrupt, and is struggling to pay contractors because it is R4.3 billion in the red.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":92980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-156936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156936"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":156948,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156936\/revisions\/156948"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}