Development of a IT / GIS Model Designed to Help Local Municipalities in South Africa to Manage Water and Sanitation Services and for the Benefit of Poor and Rural Communities.
Mark VAN DEN BERG, South Africa For the full report click here

SUMMARY

The national Dept of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) in South Africa has developed a strategy, in line with government policy, to devolve the responsibility to supply water and sanitation services, to local municipalities. All water and sanitation assets owned by DWAF will be transferred to local municipalities (LMs) over the next three years.

Government has finally realized that the delivery of basic services to communities is best carried out at the local level. DWAF plans to provide local municipalities with the necessary resources to manage these services and LMs are generally in favour of this new government policy.

There are several problems which will affect the implementation of this strategy including extremely poor as-built information of the water and sanitation services, a culture of non payment of services by communities, limited resources of LMs to manage and operate water and sanitation services etc.

This paper presents an IT / GIS / Facilities Management Model designed by survey consultants engaged by DWAF, that will address the problems listed above and effectively empower LMs to manage and expand their water and sanitation services. The model combines IT and GIS technology with GPS technology, data management technology, innovative database design, local skills empowerment and the re-engineering of local government business processes. Implementation will commence in January 2003 and will extend to November 2004, at a cost of approximately  2.0 million