Pressure mounts on Water and Sanitation Dept for complete procurement overhaul

JOHANNESBURG - With more than 300 cases of financial misconduct confirmed at the Department of Water and Sanitation, pressure is mounting for a complete procurement overhaul.

The department’s director-general, Sean Phillips, said the current system is too bureaucratic and open to abuse, warning that administrative fixes alone won’t prevent future failures.

He’s calling for a shift in government, including single-point accountability, better planning, and the appointment of professional procurement officers to handle major projects.

Earlier in 2025, Phillips told Parliament that procurement in government often reduces to ticking boxes and that multi-billion-rand infrastructure projects need professional expertise from start to finish.

He has reiterated this on Tuesday on Radio 702.

“In terms of regulating and trying to control, we tend to be too bureaucratic, and we reduce things to ticking boxes, when actually something like a major infrastructure procurement requires professional expertise.”

The department said it is taking disciplinary action against officials, referring cases to law enforcement, and normalise past irregular expenditure, but the Auditor-General has still flagged material irregularities.

Phillips argued that until government shifts away from rushed, under-planned programmes, South Africa will keep losing money to poorly run projects, while communities pay the price when water systems fail.