The Department of Water and Sanitation has been allocated an amount of R134.909 billion over the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF).
Presenting the department’s Budget Vote in Parliament on Friday, Water and Sanitation Minister, Pemmy Mojodima, said the budget includes allocations of R42.604 billion, R46.362 billion and R45.941 billion in the 2024/25, 2025/26 and 2026/27 financial years respectively.
The department’s budget consists of two components, including the main account and water trading entity.
“On the main account, the department has been allocated R72.989 billion over the MTEF. This consists of allocations of R24.074 billion, R25.159 billion and R23.754 billion in 2024/25, 2025/26 and 2026/27 respectively.
“Included in the main account budget are conditional infrastructure grants for municipal water services totalling R36.305 billion over the MTEF. This includes R20.130 billion for the Regional Bulk Infrastructure Grant and R16.175 billion for the Water Services Infrastructure Grant,” Majodima explained.
She noted that the water trading entity is mostly funded through revenue collection from the sale of water, but also receives some transfers from the fiscus for infrastructure projects.
The water trading entity has been allocated R61.920 billion over the MTEF, including R18.530 billion, R21.202 billion and R22.187 billion in 2024/25, 2025/26 and 2026/27 respectively.
The department, said the Minister, will make every effort to ensure that the resources are deployed as efficiently as possible “to ensure that service delivery reaches our communities”.
The department will also continue to clear all the department’s historic incidents of unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure in collaboration with National Treasury and the law enforcement agencies.
The Minister committed the department to a zero tolerance to corruption and ensuring the promotion of good governance.
“In recent years, the department has successfully reduced its under-expenditure against its budget – in 2021/22 there was R2.5 billion under-expenditure (which equals to 14.3% of the budget), in 2022/23 there was R860 million under-expenditure (5% of the budget), and in 2023/24 there was R44 million under-expenditure (0.2% of the budget).
“It is our intention to eradicate under-expenditure altogether and achieve 100% expenditure of our budget in the current financial year. This will be done by making our infrastructure procurement processes more efficient and effective and by improving our management of allocations to projects during the financial year,” Majodima said. – SAnews.gov.za
