TCTA SUBMISSION ON NATIONAL WATER RESOURCES STRATEGY-2 Prof TCTA SUBMISSION ON NATIONAL WATER RESOURCES STRATEGY-2 Prof. Ola Busari Executive: Knowledge Management, TCTA Public Hearings on the Draft NWRS-2 Portfolio Committee on Water & Environment, 31 October 2012

Outline Purpose of Presentation National Water Resources Strategy & TCTA NWRS-2 Strategies & Actions in relation to TCTA Mandate NWRS-2 Completeness as Strategy NWRS-2 Organization & Presentation Forward: Constructive Engagement with DWA

Purpose of Presentation Make a submission on the guidance provided in the draft NWRS-2, in respect of TCTA mandate & work. Provide comments & suggestions for improving the content & organization of the NWRS-2 in general. Present a balanced & constructive review of the draft document.

National Water Resources Strategy & TCTA The National Water Act stipulates that the NWRS ‘is binding on all authorities and institutions exercising powers or performing duties’ under the Act. Section 7 states clearly that ‘a water management institution must give effect to the national water resource strategy’ when performing duties in terms of the Act. As the primary implementer of off-budget, bulk water infrastructure on behalf of the State, TCTA has a significant reliance upon the NWRS to guide its own business strategy.

Project operations model Mandate from the Minister of Water Affairs Financing, costing, timeline Design optimisation Due diligence: Obtain project risk rating, and competitive financing (local and international) Type of funding Construction (incl. social component) Procurement BBBEE Skills transfer Enterprise Development Local employment Local Products Contractor dev. Job creation Poverty alleviation LED

NWRS-2 Strategies & Actions in relation to TCTA Key strategies the TCTA needs to give effect to confirm the continuing role & relevance of TCTA in four main areas: Infrastructure investment: ‘technical strategies’, p129 Funding practice & revenue: ‘enabling strategies’, p169 Institutional interface with a new government component: ‘governance strategies’, p194 International water cooperation, although missing in ‘governance strategies’, p202, is captured in terms of infrastructure development (p129) & Vaal System (p212)

NWRS-2 Strategies & Actions for TCTA contd: key action areas Priority action areas requiring heightened and direct business attention and engagement by TCTA identified: Urgent finalization of the water infrastructure investment framework, to be reviewed every 5 years (action #67, p92) Development of innovative water financing models by 2013 (action #68, p92) Review of the Raw Water Pricing Strategy by 2013 (action #45, p90) Establishment of the government component for National Water Resources Infrastructure (action #62, p91)

NWRS-2 Strategies & Actions, & TCTA contd: key gap area NWRS-2 gives good attention to infrastructure development & funding, under ‘technical strategies’ for infrastructure (p129-135) and ‘enabling strategies’ for water finance (p167-171). But, in terms of TCTA operations, it is important to map out in a simple table what specific water resource infrastructure developments are planned, and where and for what uses. Also, sector partners would want to see the financial implications of the planned actions, as well as the envisaged funding mechanisms & institutional responsibilities.

NWRS-2 Strategies & Actions, & TCTA contd: prioritization of water use Increased emphasis is rightly placed on the allocation of water resources to promote equitable access for improving rural livelihoods & alleviating poverty: Has progressed slowly. As already demonstrated, water infrastructure development should allow for multiple uses, including household, small-holder agriculture & strategic use, in accordance with policy. Prioritizing allocation (p44) needs to take cognizance of the varying dynamics of water resource availability across WMAs & the hard trade-offs to be confronted by users as a collective.

NWRS-2 Completeness as Strategy It makes sense that NWRS-2 addresses key points of progress with the implementation of NWRS-1, while also pinpointing some of the shortcomings (p xii). The articulation of the interface between the NWRS-2 and both the overarching national development strategies and other sector strategies is a useful inclusion. There is also a great effort to innovate in NWRS-2, bringing in a more ‘strategy making’ approach, leading to a documentation of strategies in different dimensions.

NWRS-2 Completeness as Strategy contd Unfortunately, NWRS-2 seems to succumb to a rather complex strategic framework. The document describes 11 ‘core strategies’, 2 ‘detailed core strategies’, 7 ‘technical strategies’, 4 ‘enabling strategies’ and 4 ‘governance strategies’, aside from ‘spatial perspectives’. By any standards of strategy-making, the adopted approach appears like an over-kill that could make reading difficult. Also, the potential for overlapping implementation tasks among 28 discrete strategies is vast, and will probably serve as an inhibitor to monitoring.

NWRS-2 Completeness as Strategy contd Articulation of strategies for managing water resources should be kept as simple as possible, using established (or amended) strategic themes, especially in sync with Sections 5/6 of NWA. Following a macro-situation analysis, it may be considered to have strategies at max 3 levels: as per familiar water management themes, spatially (WMAs) & cross-cutting theme. And the spatial perspectives (p207-259) would benefit from further processing of WMA info, including water resource availability & requirements. This simplicity and rationalization should also help minimize large repetitions of entire paragraphs, e.g. management challenges (p16 & p46-50), water resource info (p96 & p97).

NWRS-2 Organization & Presentation Organization of the document suffers from what could be the challenge of weaving contributions form various authors or coordinating updated versions. Evidence: the first seven chapters described on p2 (Structure) don’t match the contents of those chapters. Many of the key strategic actions (p83-93) are commendably specific and time-bound, but the list of 79 appears unending, calling for a more logical clustering. Long after the key actions are listed, in Part B (p103), each new strategy is freshly detailed with key issues, vision, operational objectives and (again) strategic actions (p103-206).

Forward: Constructive Engagement with DWA TCTA views the draft NWRS-2 as an agency of DWA TCTA will undertake direct engagement and input TCTA looks forward to making further contributions for improvement of NWRS-2

TCTA Thank You! Telephone: (+27) 12 683 1200 E-mail: obusari@tcta.co.za Website: http://www.tcta.co.za 15