Johannesburg leaks 47% of its water

 A big part of Phillips' diagnosis focused on how water services are organised. The law separates two roles; the water services authority (WSA) – to oversee and regulate services – and the water services provider (WSP), responsible for distributing water. Johannesburg Water is the WSP and the municipality is the WSA. Phillips is the city's water boss.

• In theory the separation is meant to improve accountability. In practice, Phillips stated, accountability is weakened as water services are absorbed into the wider municipal bureaucracy. Responsibility is spread across multiple departments. Procurement sits in one place. Staffing decisions in another. Billing and revenue collection elsewhere.
• WSP’s are supposed to be self-sustaining, feeding their revenue from water sales back into day to day operations, maintenance and repairs. This model is breaking down as municipalities lose 47% of the water they buy before it generates any revenue due to leaks, illegal connections and poor metering. In addition, municipalities can legally use this revenue to fund other municipal functions.
• As a remedy, Phillips proposed a move towards a utility model in which providers control their revenue, are professionally managed and accountable, with control over the functions needed to recover costs and deliver services.
• Legislative reforms, including the Water Services Amendment Bill and National Treasury proposals on ring-fencing revenue, would, in his view, promote further improvements.
• He said Johannesburg needs a new approach to water provision, one that aligns responsibility with authority and supports stable, accountable service delivery. The critical issue is to replace current, dysfunctional structures with effective ones. Any model will fail unless it incorporates three elements: competition, incentives and regulations that hold operators to clear standards.

I understand he is proposing something like the Israeli Taagidey Maim, which has led to a vast new bureaucracy.