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After almost 30 months with no-one occupying the position of Director-General (DG) of the Department of Water, a DG has finally been appointed. Maxwell Sirenya, the former CEO of the Amatola Water Board, has been appointed to this position, and has the significant task of turning around this poorly functioning Department.

He replaces Pam Yako, who was suspended on 21 July 2009, pending a disciplinary hearing. Despite the disciplinary procedures having been finalised in late 2010, resulting in the dismissal of Pam Yako, the DG position remained vacant for the whole of 2011.

Sirenya has to deal with the consequences of the leadership vacuum that has afflicted this Department over the last two years. The Democratic Alliance (DA) believes the following eight things require the urgent attention of the new DG:

Obtaining an unqualified audit opinion for the Department: The Department has received qualified audit opinions for the last two years. In the most recent report for2010/2011, the Auditor-General noted that "there was no system of control over fruitless and wasteful expenditure on which I could rely".
Obtaining an unqualified audit opinion for the Water Trading Entity (WTE): The WTE obtained a disclaimer opinion for 2010/2011. In the five preceding years the WTE obtained a further two disclaimer opinions and two qualified opinions. The WTE is struggling to manage debt, and does not have reliable information on water users across the country.
Filling the high number of senior management staff vacancies: In reply to a DA parliamentary question in late 2011 the Minister stated that there were 49 vacancies in this category. One can only imagine the debilitating effect these vacancies have had on service delivery.
Improving staff morale: The lack of leadership in the Department has resulted in low staff morale, which has been compounded by the high number of staff vacancies, as many staff members have been forced to perform a greater number of functions.
Eliminating the backlog of water use licences (WULs): Project Letsema was started specifically to deal with the backlog in processing of WULs. It has consistently missed its deadlines, and the backlog must be dealt with once and for all.
Providing clarity on outcomes of the Business Process Review / Re-engineering Committee: This committee, headed by Brigitte Mabandla, started work on 1 July 2011. The committee is expected to provide recommendations on how the Department can improve its functioning. By the end of last year R5m had been paid to the committee members for their services. The new DG will need to keep strict controls on payments to the committee, and ensure that the promised outcomes are delivered upon by 30 June 2012, and that value for money is achieved.
Being a leader in water planning: The Water Reconciliation Strategy is now almost complete for the whole country, so the Department should have a better sense of what resources are available and what the demands for water are. The Department must have the guts to say no to requests for access to water, particularly in ecologically sensitive areas. Most notably, the Department must not be forced into providing WULs to all mines just because the Department of Mineral Resources has given them authorisation to mine.
Establishing dedicated compliance management and enforcement (CME) units in all provinces: At present, only the Mpumalanga regional office of the Department has a dedicated unit of so-called Blue Scorpions. In order to police transgressions of the Water Act more effectively, and to hold transgressors to account, greater emphasis needs to be placed on enforcement.