Siyabulela Koyo, the new CEO of Amatola Water in Eastern Cape, is confident about rising above a wave of challenges at the utility after his appointment this month.
Koyo took up a five-year contract with the entity based in East London. He takes over after leading Amatola to an unqualified audit report for the 2022/2023 financial year. He had been the acting CEO in the past financial year.
Though it was the first time in more than three years that Amatola Water had received such a positive audit outcome, it does not mean its challenges are a thing of the past.
Responding to Sunday World’s enquiry about the challenges lying ahead, Koyo highlighted five area of concern he is set to deal with. These are linked or influenced by loadshedding, ageing infrastructure, financial stability, operational hurdles and recruiting and retaining skilled workforce.
“Frequent power outages remain one of the fundamental challenge that affect the water supply. The state of aging infrastructure has a negative impact on the operational targets. We will need to improve our stakeholder management relations with municipalities who battle to make bulk payments for water services.
“Financial stability is important since our debtor collection period has increased, reflecting the difficulty in collecting revenue. The fiscal year ended with an operating deficit of R196-million, an increase from the previous year’s R174-million,” Koyo said.
Decrease in water losses
“Proactive maintenance of our water infrastructure will always be crucial in our effort to provide uninterrupted water supply. This year, we recorded a total production loss of 7.50% and a decrease in treated water network losses from 10.38% to 7.0%.”
Koyo put a great deal of emphasis on highly skilled personnel to implement the utility’s turnaround strategy.
He pointed to the 2022/23 unqualified audit report as evidence of his processes beginning to bear fruit. Apart being acting CEO in the past year, Koyo has been the utility’s executive for much longer.
“The past two years and six months I have been with Amatola as executive manager for planning and development, and as acting CEO.
“My previous role as technical director for 10 years and a municipal manager have prepared me for this role.”
In total, Koyo has over 20 years of experience in civil engineering management across public and private sectors. He was municipal manager of Intsika Yethu municipality before joining Amatola Water in 2021 as the executive manager of planning and development. His role was chiefly to oversee critical areas such as projects, infrastructure planning, water resource planning, quality, and environmental management.
He holds a BTech degree in civil engineering, a master’s degree in developmental studies, and a postgraduate diploma in government-wide monitoring and evaluation. He is currently pursuing an MBA.
“I am confident that all these challenges [above] would be overcome. Working with the board and our staff, we will certainly chart a progressive way forward as a business entity.”
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