In 1997, the Mvula Trust, a South African NGO, entered into a private sector consortium for the delivery of sustainable water and sanitation services to the rural and peri-urban poor in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The national Department for Water and Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) designed and tendered a BoTT contract for this purpose.

The BoTT was envisaged as a one-stop shop arrangement. Consequently, one of the fundamental requirements of the bid was for the tenderer to provide skilled institutional and development services. The Amanz'abantu consortium, developed by the international operator Lyonnaise des Eaux (now Ondeo) and run through the WSSA office, approached Mvula Trust to provide these services in the consortium. Through the BoTT, the government aimed to establish new organisations as standing resources to implement a stream of projects. By only tendering once for multi-year engagements, the government cut down enormously on its traditional role and sped up the process while maintaining accountability and oversight. As well as increased speed, the BoTT strategy aims to reduce administrative costs for government and gain access to strong management resources.

The BOTTs in South Africa are intended as groups of organisations that collectively have the skills and resources to develop sustainable water systems. Under enormous time pressure and looking towards the fundamental objective of providing services to the poor in a rapid delivery process, the Mvula Trust agreed to join the consortium prior to the tender submission. As a well- established and respected NGO in the water and sanitation sector in South Africa (and given its previous links to DWAF), it can be argued that its presence was a key factor in the strength of the Amanz'abantu proposal. However, at this time Mvula was not in a position to see the potential drawbacks of the consortium or envisage the problems to come. It established its place at the partnership table, but did not negotiate any conditions of collaboration.

The Amanz'abantu consortium includes five original signatories: an international water operator, a construction company, design consultant and a national water resource consultant, plus the Mvula Trust. Three additional partners have joined since to provide various technical services.

There are four different levels of contracting partnerships with the private sector: the programme or provincial level (Amanz'abantu); the design level with technical consultants (Ninham Shand and FST); the construction levels with contractors (Group 5); and the operations and maintenance level (WSSA). All contract relationships follow the consortium model.

For the NGO, the clear advantage of the consortium approach to contracting the services of an NGO has been that:

•  Mvula Trust has a place at the partnership table, and has been able to influence decision-making;

•  Mvula has worked well with WSSA on the development of a sustainable operations and maintenance package;

•  despite difficulties, the importance of the social and institutional development aspects of service delivery has become mainstreamed; and

•  Mvula has been a party to far more information than it would have had access to if it had remained outside the entity.

However despite these benefits, the relationship has been fraught with difficulties. Mvula suggests that this could have been avoided by better planning and partnering at the outset, when relationships were being formed and precedents set. But in practice, the need to work quickly in the preparation of a bid led to partnerships being formed, and when the proposal was selected as the successful tender, commitments had to be met. For the NGO, some of the key problems arising from the consortium contracting model have been:

•  the reputation of Mvula has been threatened by its closeness to the other private sector partners;

•  the independence that the community expects of an NGO has been compromised by its contractual relationship; and

•  Mvula has at times felt that it has been unable to represent the community effectively, and is unable to carry out its institutional and social development role effectively because of the pressure that can be exerted on it by the consortium.