Committees and Commissions

Every now and then, one is appointed on some committee or another. Two are worth mentioning: a sub-committee of the Prime Minister’s Planning Advisory Council for the Drakensberg Catchment Area. Another member was Dolf Brynard, in charge of the Kruger National Park and later Chief Director of the National Parks Board. The second one was an international committee that was to study the spread of the Kariba weed from the Zambezi to the Okavango. There were delegates from SA, Botswana and the then Rhodesia. We went by military plane to the Caprivi and from there were flown around in a SA Air force helicopter.  Flying over the Savuti channel between the Linianti and the Okavango was a never to forget experience – massive numbers of game of any kind! The Rhodesian delegation gave me a lift to Victoria Falls via the Chobe National Park. At the time, there was a contingent of SA Police at Vic Falls, who arranged for a lift by military flight to Waterkloof, without making sure of my identity!

On 8 May 1978, a top-level meeting between the South African Railways and the Mozambique railway authorities took place in the VIP room at Cape Town station. This meeting had a profound influence on my career since. Present were Dr Kobus Loubser, CEO of the SAR and Messrs Loots and du Toit, also of the SAR; Mrs Alcantara Santos and de Almeida Lorena of Mozambique and I. The two railway organisations had kept contact right through the revolutionary situation in Mozambique and the enmity between the two countries concerned since. The reason why I was present was that one of the purposes of the meeting was to lay on contacts between Mozambique and the RSA in connection with common river basins – viz. the Incomati and Limpopo basins. Shortly afterwards, on 14 June 1978, a delegation consisting of Messrs Killen and Geldenhuys of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Wouter van der Merwe and I of the DWA, travelled to Maputo for discussions. This was the first step in the regular contact since. A very important part of my duties since then was international relations about water between the RSA and the neighbouring states, which shared river basins. Bilateral Committees or Commissions were formed with Botswana, Swaziland and Mozambique. There were also multi-lateral bodies to deal with the Limpopo basin between the RSA, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, and with the Incomati basin between the RSA, Swaziland and Mozambique. Chairmanship of these bodies depended on the country were meetings took place. Johan du Plessis initially led the RSA delegations until I succeeded him as Managing Engineer (Water Resources). Because in those days, the homelands became “independent “,  one after another, similar bilateral committees were created with them, all landing in my lap. At some stage I was called South Africa’s water diplomat in the press.