Managing finances at village water committee level

The Mvula Trust, a leading Non-Governmental Organization in the Water and Sanitation Sector in South Africa, has over the past 7 years successfully assisted and supported communities in managing their finances. Standard forms and procedures were developed by the Mvula Trust to assist the communities in managing their finances. This is in line with the Mvula Trust’s community based management approach. The approach seeks to empower local level structures to manage their water supply projects. To date, an amount of more than R200 million ($25m) has been channeled to community accounts for implementation of water projects. To Mvula’s credit only 0.15% of this money has been lost through fraud. This paper presents field experiences from one of the projects implemented by Mvula. The project was funded by the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry through Mvula Trust. The project was audited by myself. The case study will give a background regarding the funds that were directly paid into the project’s account. It will describe how these funds have been managed by Mvula, and the system utilised by the community itself. The paper will reflect that empowered communities can successfully manage the implementation of their own development projects.