AG: eThekwini water tanker availability at 62% during floods

Auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke, on Wednesday morning, briefed Parliament on her first report on flood relief funds.

"When we looked even at the delivery of their own plans and their own expectations on how far they would have gone by the end of July, there was still a significant disparity. 

"So even by their own plans, government institutions were not able to effectively and quickly role-out these key initiatives." 

She says government needs to figure out how to build institutional capabilities, so responsiveness becomes part of the system. 

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Maluleke says in the eThekwini metro, they found that there was a lack of response in providing flood-affected areas with water, leaving some communities to go days or even months without the basic need.

She says it was found that this was poor coordination between eThekwini metro, the province and national department. 

"The metro had its own fleet of water tankers. Not all of those water tankers were available because of fleet management weaknesses which really is an internal control and internal discipline issue. We found that only 62 percent of the water tanks that actually belong to the metro were available to be used." 

Out of the 198 tankers, 30 were selected for auditing.