“There were unprecedented rates of staff turnover and alarming number of vacancies and top-level suspensions, which produced an environment in which staff members were vulnerable to arbitrary decision-making.”
By July 2017 it was clear that something was going terribly wrong at the water and sanitation department. Four very senior officials had been suspended, adding to the 900 vacancies. In the previous year, the department had overspent its budget and quadrupled its debt to R2.6-billion, yet only achieved a quarter of the goals it had set for itself.
The report argues that state capture in the department happened in two phases. The first, in the 1990s and 2000s, came in three main thrusts: securing control over the department and weakening its oversight capacity, centralising control and then weakening legislation. It wasn’t just the municipalities that were corruption-ridden. In the 1990s the big water projects were also plagued by fraud and theft.
The greatest corruption, according to auditor general reports, seemed to be in large infrastructure projects and in the department’s information technology systems. Permanent employees said they would be subcontracted to work at the department, with the person who employed them — who is also a department employee — charging the ministry for the “subcontractors” and then pocketing the difference.
Under Mokonyane’s tenure, the research says:
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