{"id":366030,"date":"2020-01-14T11:25:12","date_gmt":"2020-01-14T09:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=366030"},"modified":"2020-01-14T11:27:58","modified_gmt":"2020-01-14T09:27:58","slug":"water-department-investigating-800-cases-of-fraud-and-corruption-as-it-prepares-r900-billion-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/366030\/water-department-investigating-800-cases-of-fraud-and-corruption-as-it-prepares-r900-billion-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Water department investigating 800 cases of fraud and corruption as it prepares R900 billion plan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Department of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation is investigating hundreds of cases of fraud and corruption as it prepares to implement its R900 billion water master plan.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.702.co.za\/articles\/371802\/we-re-investigating-about-800-cases-of-fraud-maladministration-and-corruption\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">702<\/a><\/strong>, spokesperson Makhosini Mgitywa said that the department was &#8216;multi-tasking&#8217; by introducing the new plan and stamping out existing issues.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As we speak we have about 800 cases of fraud, maladministration and corruption that are being investigated.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That has caused huge problems inside the department itself because you have instances of multiple people resigning from a unit to avoid disciplinary action.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So we have to find a way of removing the culture of maladministration but at the same time make sure we don&#8217;t gut the department.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The planned clean-up at the Department of Water and Sanitation comes as minister Lindiwe Sisulu prepares to implement her new R900 billion water master plan over the next decade.<\/p>\n<p>Announced in November 2019, the plan aims to improve the country&#8217;s water-supply and storage infrastructure and tackle a growing shortage of the resource.<\/p>\n<p>A separate unit will be established to finance, manage and operate the national water infrastructure, while projects that are currently in the works will be expedited, Sisulu said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is not enough water for a country that is industrialised with a high population growth.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The demand simply outweighs the supply,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need to constantly raise consciousness to preserve what we have.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The department has said that more than one-third of available water is lost due to leaking pipes, ageing and broken infrastructure, vandalism and contamination.<\/p>\n<p>Maintenance backlogs have been exacerbated due to funding shortfalls and a failure by municipalities and other users to pay for their supplies.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/365666\/r900-billion-plan-is-the-best-option-to-stop-south-africas-water-crisis-government\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">R900 billion plan is the \u2018best option\u2019 to stop South Africa\u2019s water crisis: government<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Department of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation is investigating hundreds of cases of fraud and corruption as it prepares to implement its R900 billion water master plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":103729,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-366030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366030","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=366030"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":366050,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366030\/revisions\/366050"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}