EOH is systemic to South Africa's economy, making a valuable contribution to society. Our sustainability relies on a future-focused, vibrant public and private sector to make full use of its advanced digital solutions.

EOH is passionate about innovation and committed to leading the next generation of sustainable technology that makes a valuable contribution to society and enables a better world. We play a pivotal role in driving a vibrant and growing digital sector within South Africa and beyond by stimulating innovation and new collaborative partnerships that blend the best technical skills and products to evolve solutions that meet our customers' needs.

We provide the backbone of banking systems for many banks in South Africa and Africa, support telecommunications companies and assist Eskom with balancing the power grid. The Group includes cutting-edge medical solutions companies and our services sit at the heart of crucial government institutions and many municipalities. We have created solutions that are integral to addressing many of the challenges raised by the COVID-19 pandemic.

iOCO

Altitude Angel

We are working on the forefront of the drone industry with a new partner Altitude Angel to uncover use cases for South Africa to leverage drone technology safely and in compliance with South African regulations and laws.

Avbob Memories

For our client Avbob, we developed the Memories site, which is a digital site where families can share funeral details with friends and loved ones, upload memories, photos, videos of the deceased, as a digital alternative and to supplement traditional funerals. With funeral gatherings being restricted due to COVID-19, the Memories site has created a useful and thoughtful way to share, collaborate and show love, leveraging the benefit of the collective.

Telecommunications customer service

For our client in the telecommunications industry, we designed and leveraged automation technology to drastically improve customer service and enable our client to scale its platform as the number of end users grow and drive value for customers. With the large growth in prepaid subscribers in South Africa, our automated solution enables citizens to make good choices and provides control and information about where they are spending their money for data and voice minutes.

We have also enabled new digital channels (such as WhatsApp) for customers to obtain information and to resolve their queries digitally rather than going to a branch. These channels are available 24/7, making customer services that much more accessible with almost immediate resolution.

Centres of excellence

iOCO AppDev has put significant investment of time and research into developing best practices, career paths, skills development and aligned competencies into various different skills areas, including development, project management, data, analysis and more. These competencies are ready to be packaged as Centres of Excellence, which can be taken to market as sellable IP and/or consulting engagements.

Transversal Applications Directorate with QSE

iOCO AppDev won a five-year tender for development support to the Transversal Applications Directorate along with our qualifying small enterprises ('QSE') partner: African Ideas.

African Ideas is a well-established, local 100% black-owned and empowered exempt micro enterprise ('EME') company, which has a strong reputation of delivering large ICT transformational projects across South Africa. African Ideas has extensive experience with the South African government.

NetSuite ERP solution

The nature of a full footprint NetSuite ERP solution (planned properly against a well thought through business case) is to add strategic enterprise value. This is normally on the level of readily available, accurate and integrated business data with which to make informed business decisions.

The iOCO NetSuite ERP solution is a relatively young business, which has now completed four lifecycle ERP projects. It has, in the process, developed implementation IP and a comprehensive project management governance toolkit for reuse in future projects.

Capacity build is a big driver at present, as NetSuite skills are not readily available in the local market. The business has in particular invested in 'manufacturing' skills sets. This is critical for the scaling-up process. NetSuite is very well suited for the small to medium enterprise market and, as such, emerging enterprises are and will remain a huge business development focus.

GetSpace Hybrid Workforce Management

GetSpace is a highly-configurable space booking and facilities management solution that enables organisations to better manage their hybrid workforce, plan their facilities better to save costs and improve efficiencies, and ensure that employees in the office are healthy enough to be there through our integrated health check. GetSpace is used throughout EOH and is gaining traction in the market with several clients in the financial services and construction spaces.

REO supports small business

Oracle consulting business REO is an active supporter of small businesses. In FY2021 the EOH subsidiary:

• provided office space for several CSI learning and development initiatives;
• continued to support and develop small businesses by using them to deliver on various corporate real estate initiatives;
• helped a small business to expand its product offerings in the supply of office furniture and fit out;
• encouraged its transport partner to broaden its offering to include furniture delivery and a shuttle service;
• played a part in a food giveaway involving the distribution of over 8 000 meals and 800 food parcels to EOH staff as well as to communities, shelters and sanctuaries during the recent unrest;
• participated in various NGO initiatives by facilitating and providing training for these entities;
• donated furniture and raised funds for the completion of the Imbeleko Foundation; and
• was actively involved in fundraising and helping to build a school in KwaZulu-Natal for the Imbeleko Foundation.

All office facilities and food donations were provided free of charge.

NEXTEC

Progress on initiatives

In addition to new projects, NEXTEC focused on commercialising the IP developed in the 2020 financial year as detailed in last year's report and repeated here for convenience:

• Developed IP for back-end pre-payment in collaboration with Sage and Jambo Pay Kenya on our AMR system. This allows for remote (ie no travel), paperless, water and electricity meter-reading collection in South Africa and Kenya.
• Developed a low-cost IoT grid monitoring solution in strategic partnership with South African electronic design and manufacturing house Truteq.

This will scale to create strong annuity flows on own IP, based on a per-user-per-month charge.

Mmapie

During the 2021 financial year, we continued to support and grow the EME subcontractor, Mmapie Contracts & Projects ('Mmapie'), which was our ED initiative for 2020. In 2021, Mmapie became a fully-fledged supplier to our business as part of this year's supplier development initiative.

IoT water metering

We became one of the first businesses to successfully deploy automated water metering via the Sygfox IoT network in South Africa and Kenya. Proof of concepts was successfully deployed to Wits University during the 2021 financial year.

EOH believes that investing in initiatives that improve mathematics, science and technology skills can improve youth employability and unlock opportunities for fulfilling careers in digital industries where there is a critical skills shortage. With COVID-19 accelerating the trend towards a more digital world, these skills are more important than ever to equip youth for inclusion into the productive economy and to futureproof a thriving and prosperous South Africa. Helping students, teachers and parents to get an ICT foundation and skill set contributes to a future generation that is more employable and builds opportunity in disadvantaged communities.

Job skills training and guidance are critical to prepare youth to enter the workforce and enterprise development initiatives promote entrepreneurial opportunities that can help break the cycle of poverty and create jobs.

Our SED activities focus on partnering with key organisations to deliver equitable solutions to quality education, with an emphasis on mathematics, science and technology.

Maths and science

EOH's support of students studying towards a career in science, technology, engineering and maths ('STEM') subjects enabled improved matric results and laid the foundation for young South Africans to enter a future-fit workforce.

The cohort of learners was selected for special support in mathematics and physical sciences. The learners attended motivation sessions, received guidance on career selection and assistance with both university and bursary applications.

Maths Centre

The Maths Centre Incorporating Sciences ('MCIS') started in 1985 as a small project in four schools, helping teachers and learners to understand IT and how computers work. Today, it is an organisation that delivers pure mathematics, physical science, and technology in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The centre provides teacher development, learner development and resources to quantile one, two and three socio-economically deficient schools.

MCIS considers teacher development key to the sustainability of any country's education. Many teachers who work in these schools may not be appropriately and sufficiently qualified, which means they cannot teach effectively. MCIS's aim is therefore to enhance teacher and learning development in order to improve results and exam performance.

EOH and MCIS have worked in partnership for over eight years. In FY2021, EOH invested R1.3 million in seven schools, most of them in Katlehong. In three of these schools, EOH also offers support, resources and specialised development for teachers of children with disabilities, and also assisted with revamping the classrooms.

MCIS's role over the past year has evolved to include online pedagogy for teaching and learning. EOH has been part of these different interventions, including the Hundred Learners project, which focuses on the difference between how learners and teachers receive online pedagogy.

Another MCIS campaign supported by EOH is Parents Matter, Parents Count, which brings parents into the teaching relationship to provide a supportive environment for their child. The campaign teaches parents to listen to their children and support them.

Belgium Campus

South Africa has a staggering youth unemployment rate and a poor economic outlook. And yet there is tremendous talent, intelligence, and innovation in this country, as well as an urgent demand for IT skills.

EOH also supports both abled and differently-abled learners through Belgium Campus, an ITversity that trains young people to work in the ICT industry and equips them with the necessary soft skills, attitudes and behaviours to make them work-ready. In 2021, 80 students were supported by EOH financially to study for a Bachelor of Computing degree or a diploma in IT, for a total investment of R4.96 million. In all, 17 students were living with a disability. A total of 10 of the sponsored students worked on an exciting project aimed at improving the country's quality of maths education, not only for deaf people, but for all learners. Just under half of the total number of students receiving financial aid towards bursaries were female.

EOH actively contributes to the Belgium Campus's curriculum to ensure its relevance with the real world. All course content is in line with national qualifications but is also tailored to address industry specific and student needs. EOH helps the campus to enrich its academics by assigning students to real-life work projects that test their understanding of business processes and systems, their grasp of customer-centric product development, and their ability to work in multidisciplinary teams. EOH employees give guest lectures each year to share their expertise about certain business technologies and frameworks in action.

Consistent attention is also paid to specialised technologies and classes designed to accommodate students with disabilities, and EOH's support has helped the campus progress the skills development and employability of young people with disabilities.

eDeaf

In South Africa, there are only 10 schools that offer a matric qualification to deaf learners, with approximately 20 learners matriculating annually. To increase the confidence and employability of deaf people, EOH partnered with eDeaf to upskill deaf people and increase their employability. In FY2021, EOH and eDeaf helped 101 learners to receive qualifications in adult basic education, technical support, systems support, and end-user computing learnerships, for a total investment of just over R1.6 million. Approximately 67 of the 80 learners have been placed or continued with further studies.

eDeaf caters to learners from Grade 9 up to matric, performs all the necessary assessments to determine which programme would suit them best, and places them in learnerships. This can be anything from an English reading and writing communication course to end-user computer learnerships. The goal is to build them up to an NQF Level 4 - the equivalent of matric - resulting in fully employable deaf individuals.

EOH has been working with eDeaf since 2018 and took on numerous entry-level learners for adult level training. They joined in from aided Level 1 through to aided Level 3, with some going as far as an NQF4 and NQF5 qualification. Learners have been supported by EOH stipends that covered their training and allowances, offering them an opportunity that they would otherwise never have had.

EOH drove the establishment of the system support NQF5 learnership, which is the entry-level to system development. The standard programme is 12 months, but with the assistance of EOH, eDeaf has added six months to the learnership, covering purely theory and concepts. As sign language is a simplified language, this theory can be complicated. eDeaf has also employed past EOH learners at its Braamfontein campus to assist new learners in these additional months. The EOH learners completed a three-year system support and development programme, making them the ideal facilitators.

When these learners have computer skills and an NQF4 equivalent, they can fill roles in anything from logistics to packing and data capturing. In addition they can use a computer to create their CVs, take advantage of opportunities, and engage with prospective employers.

Learnerships

EOH identified, upskilled, and placed 481 unemployed learners in host companies where they received training, SETA-accredited qualifications, and practical experience to enter the work environment. Of the learners, 200 were differently-abled learners, 89% were youth under the age of 29. Of the 281 abled learners, 83% were youth. The combined investment amounted to R20.7 million. Many of these learners were placed in hospitals around the country to assist the Department of Health with data capturing related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Siyanqoba and ProServ, that delivered the programmes, also form part of the learning and development pillar of EOH. As end-to-end training providers, they manage the entire process of placing learners into host companies where they get the training, qualifications and practical experience to enter the work environment. Learnerships are typically 12-month contracts, culminating in a SETA qualification and include a stipend to cover expenses such as transport and meals.

Without this opportunity from EOH, many would not have been able to afford the continuous development from an NQF Level 2 to a Level 3 or 4 qualification. Many of the learners do not hold a matric, and if they work through this channel and move up to an NQF4 - the equivalent of matric - it opens new opportunities for them.

YES

EOH recognises the potential of young people to shape the economy and the country. With South African youth aged 15 to 24 and 25 to 34 recording the unemployment rates of 63.3% and 41.3% respectively, it is vital that the private sector fosters employability and economic inclusion.

The Youth Employment Service ('YES') is a business-led collaboration that seeks out ground-breaking ways, through innovation and technological best practice, to reignite the economy and give youth a dignified first chance.

The YES 12-month quality work experience equips unemployed youth with a pathway to participate in meaningful work and enhance their employability.

Through the YES initiative, EOH supported 137 unemployed youth to develop their skills as they begin their journey towards becoming inspiring leaders.

Afrika Tikkun

Organisations like Afrika Tikkun, supported by companies such as EOH, are working hard to bridge the gap between the ICT job market and young, disadvantaged South Africans by helping them develop their STEM skills and improve their employability.

Afrika Tikkun and EOH have worked together for 10 years with a single-minded mission: To develop a pipeline of young people who can access the economy through employment or entrepreneurialism. Over the last three years, EOH has directed its financial investment to focus specifically on upskilling young people to meet the needs of the ICT sector. The beneficiaries are divided into two age groups: Grades 8 to 12 and post-grade 12, to ensure that the different ages and life stages are catered for appropriately. A total of R2.9 million was invested to support future leaders of our country.

Afrika Tikkun's training focuses on building young people's digital literacy to use computers with confidence, as well as introducing them to sought-after skills such as coding. Through Afrika Tikkun's work-readiness programme, young people who have left school and need employable skills are introduced to more advanced ICT skills in specialised areas such as cybersecurity and software development.

Over and above its financial investment in digital upskilling, which this year amounted to R2.9 million, EOH has also contributed to Afrika Tikkun's work-readiness programmes through donations in time and knowledge. Through its GearUp campaign, EOH encourages employees to share their practical workplace expertise as well as prepared the students through workshops for their interviews. In this way, the beneficiaries' ICT training is complemented by soft skills, rounding out their preparation for the working world.

In addition to sharing their valuable time and knowledge, EOH's employees donate much-needed formal wear, all of which gives beneficiaries the confidence they need to step into a business environment.

COVID-19 threw a challenging spanner in the works, pushing the Afrika Tikkun team to move its youth development programmes into the virtual space. Thanks to EOH's support, the team learnt how to organise and run online workshops, webinars, and training sessions with success.

Gunther Solutions

EOH firmly believes that true, sustainable transformation requires a more involved approach to enterprise development that goes beyond depositing funds to tick the B-BBEE scorecard.

Gunther Solutions is a bespoke software solutions and data management company that employs advances in machine learning, AI, business intelligence and automated reporting to solve business problems for the financial services sector.

The EOH Integrated Services team worked closely with Gunther Solutions to develop a fool-proof business proposal that addressed vendor procurement criteria, such as cash flow stability and additional resource requirements, with absolute transparency.

EOH then co-presented the proposal to a leading financial services company alongside Gunther Solutions' CEO, demonstrating how they would provide the specific support Gunther needed to operate as a small business in a big business context. Gunther Solutions won the work and delivered the project on time and within budget and four years later has retained the client.

Over the past three years, EOH has spent a significant amount of time building an organisation that is future-fit enabled by best-practice GRC systems and processes and a deeply rooted ethical culture.

There has been radical transformation in terms of governance and compliance across EOH as a result. With these new policies, measures and controls in place, EOH has witnessed a fundamental change in the way it is being run and governed under the current leadership. The zero-tolerance approach to unethical behaviour is evidenced in the public stance of the CEO, as well as the extensive actions taken by the leadership team.

The South African government continues to make extensive use of EOH as a critical provider of IT support to a multitude of government clients, while OEMs and customers have remained loyal to EOH. This is evidenced by the return of large multi-year contracts across both public and private sectors. The public sector remains a key client for EOH with a ~20% contribution to total revenue and to date, neither EOH, nor any of its affiliates have been disbarred from providing services or bidding on government contracts in South Africa or elsewhere.

This is largely due to our clients' acknowledgement and appreciation of our robust and transparent actions to root out wrongdoing.

Furthermore, we have successfully resolved nearly all of the previously disclosed problematic legacy contracts, with seven of the eight settled and one in arbitration. As part of our remediation process to address the inherited legacy issues, we reached a settlement agreement with the SIU in terms of which EOH will compensate the Department of Defence in South Africa for confirmed overcharging on Microsoft licence sales. Further to this, EOH is in the process of negotiating with the SIU to reach a similar settlement with regards to the Department of Water and Sanitation.

EOH has issued civil claims against some of the perpetrators whom it believes have the requisite assets to pay back the damages, or at least part thereof, that they have inflicted on EOH. EOH has issued summonses against its former founder and CEO, former CFO and another former director for damages that have resulted from their failure to exercise the proper fiduciary obligations while in their positions that ultimately allowed for the wrongdoing to occur.

This puts an end to uncertainty regarding this issue and also reflects that EOH has been proactive in remedying identified wrongs.

The Road to Green

'The Road to Green' is what we call our journey towards verifiable, meaningful, lived compliance with high ethical standards, at every level of the organisation. We believe this approach to GRC is a game-changing model that provides a shining light in guiding all of our efforts towards building an ethically-driven, values-based culture for corporate South Africa.

Fundamental remedial actions and governance frameworks have been implemented to address the historical issue of governance failings and to support the establishment of a solid foundation for good governance and ethical business practices.

Technology has played a critical role in strengthening and monitoring our control environment and the management of risks within our organisation. The EOH regulatory landscape was enhanced with technology solutions, which we believe is critical for all corporates.

The Road to Green encompassed the implementation of changes that include:

• A new risk governance framework that introduced policies, procedures and guidelines for effective risk management. The new framework requires reports to the chairperson of the EOH Audit Committee, Social and Ethics Committee and Risk and Governance Committee.
• Tone from the Top is the EOH executive management team's commitment to anti-bribery and corruption compliance.
• Training and awareness – dedicated anti-bribery and corruption training for employees achieved a 93% attendance and completion rate.
• Revised compliance policy framework with new policies.
• The implementation of a conflicts' management control room within the Compliance function, which conducts a due diligence on all third parties and the respective proposed engagements prior to said engagements. The due diligence includes but is not limited to checks for adverse media, politically exposed or influential persons, internally restricted third parties and potential conflicts of interest.
• The implementation of an automated Compliance portal and electronic attestation process.
• An enhanced King IV compliant Board with the requisite knowledge, skills, experience, diversity and independence.

Anti-corruption programme

The executive management team has dedicated a substantial amount of time to establish procedures and processes in line with the anti-corruption requirements applicable to EOH.

The anti-corruption compliance requirements oblige EOH to develop comprehensive and robust anti-corruption processes and procedures. EOH's business activities in the United States and, more particularly, its contracts with US-based OEMs, require EOH to confirm that they would at all times comply with US anti-bribery laws. The Group's global footprint also potentially subjects EOH to the United Kingdom Bribery Act.

In addition, the Company's Social and Ethics Committee is responsible for, inter alia, monitoring the Company's progress and standing around the implementation of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ('OECD)' recommendations on corruption, which requires EOH to develop anti-corruption controls based on a Group risk assessment. The Social and Ethics Committee also has a duty to observe the United Nations Global compact principles which incorporate a duty to reduce corruption.

Initiatives aimed at aligning our people to our values

As part of EOH's employee performance management process, employee compliance measures such as the declaration of gifts and entertainment, outside business affiliations and personal account dealings form part of individual key performance indicators.

An Employee Equity Committee has been established to propel transformation efforts, in line with requirements of the Department of Labour. In addition, the EOH CEO Awards is an initiative rolled out to identify and encourage productivity within the organisation and to ensure recognition of internal talent that is aligned with the EOH values.

GRC training - the Cerebro LMS system

Embedding sound governance within our culture requires more than robust systems. We needed meaningful, organisation-wide training in compliance.

Refer to case study on GRC case studies in the CRO's report.

Automation of on-boarding third parties (The Control Room)

To give effect to provisions set out in the EOH anti-bribery and corruption policy, third-party risk management framework, as well as the EOH fraud risk policy, all third parties (contractors, affiliates, service providers, etc) are subjected to internal screening.

The automation of on-boarding third parties is accomplished via a platform known as the 'Control Room'. As part of the Control Room process, third parties are screened against EOH's watch and restricted list, politically exposed persons ('PEP') lists, adverse media and conflicts register, as well as sanctions and/or regulatory findings before entering into any commercial agreements.

Furthermore, the Control Room requires all employees to disclose their outside business affiliations to identify any conflicts of interest that might exist in pursuit of respective business opportunities. Employees are also required to notify Compliance of all gifts and entertainment given and/or received throughout the course of business. These processes have been implemented and digitised to mitigate risks of bribery and corruption within EOH.

Bid reviews

Between July 2018 and December 2019, ENSafrica conducted 559 bid reviews for EOH. These bid reviews included all public sector bids (local and international) and private sector bids (above R10 million - local and international) submitted by the Group. By January 2020, EOH developed internal capability for bid monitoring and review. EOH's Bid Review Committee is responsible for vetting all public sector bids in excess of R1 million and private sector bids in excess of R10 million. These bids are interrogated by specialists in various disciplines including compliance, legal, finance and risk.

ExposeIT whistleblowing application

Whistleblowing is the reporting of misconduct within the workplace by an individual, but it can only happen if the whistleblower has no fear of being victimised and reports their concerns in a confidential manner.

The ExposeIT whistleblowing app was developed to provide anonymous and confidential reporting of concerns around inappropriate behaviour of any kind that could impact EOH. It has since been rolled out to corporate South Africa to allow for the widespread anonymous reporting of wrongdoing and corruption.

After the July unrest which took place in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, the functionality of the app was expanded to enable all South African citizens to use ExposeIT to report incidents of looting, unrest and other criminal acts anonymously without fear of being victimised.

Outside Business Interest declarations

EOH as a whole achieved 100% completion rate on the FY2021 OBI declaration project and the Compliance function actively managed all of the declared OBIs. An OBI tool was developed and transitions into annual declarations.

POPIA

EOH is now POPIA compliant, meaning that all controls have been assessed and met at a basic level, and a more enhanced and efficient way of implementation is underway. An information officer forum was created, and formal information officers have been allocated across the business. A data privacy platform is being built, and the data privacy accountability framework has been implemented.

A future-ready internal audit function

The internal audit charter was aligned with King IV principles at the beginning of FY2021, which commenced the foundation year for the Group internal audit ('GIA') department. The department has passed the governance requirements for external audit reliance by PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc. ('PwC') in terms of ISA 610.

A data assurance department was established in terms of King IV Principle 15 Practice 45 within the internal audit function to assist in providing independent validation to various material datasets within the organisation, with specific attention to payroll, credit card and fuel card usage.

The GIA department developed its strategy around becoming a data orientated internal audit department, in order to fulfil its mission of establishing the 'Future state internal audit department, Today!'. New technologies and an innovative approach have been embedded into EOH audits using data and analytics and other emerging technologies and trends. Advanced scripting and rules-based anomaly detection have been implemented in several audits to assist in identifying risk and controls failures.

Though we have a relatively low environmental footprint as a provider of professional services, we see effective environmental stewardship as an important aspect of an organisation's licence to operate. EOH is committed to playing its role in addressing the challenges climate change presents to South Africa and the global economy in the areas where we can.

The biggest opportunity we have to increase environmental sustainability is to apply our expertise, resources, research and innovation to create solutions that provide our customers with the technology to improve the efficiency and sustainability of their operations, products and services. NEXTEC's solutions include technologies that support smart, safe, healthy and secure environments, including energy control systems, building management environmental solutions and intelligent green building design.

NEXTEC's energy and water technology solutions can significantly reduce energy and water consumption. NEXTEC provides air monitoring solutions to industry, government and research organisations. Our analytical instrumentation offers continuous measurement of both surrounding air pollution and chimney emissions. iOCO's work in the digital solutions arena reduces the need for paper and physical transport and, for this reason, supports the environment by reducing the need for fossil fuels and fossil fuel-derived products.

Within the Group, our goal is to minimise our direct impact on the environment by operating our facilities and conducting our activities in ways that reduce energy, water, paper consumption, waste and greenhouse gas emissions. We support and comply with the requirements of current environmental legislation and codes of practice associated with industry-best practices. As far as possible, we purchase products and services that minimise damage to the environment and we aim to minimise waste and prioritise waste reuse or recycling. EOH vehicles are operated and maintained with due regard to environmental issues and we apply the principles of continuous improvement in respect of air, water, noise and light pollution from EOH premises.

EOH's innovative, collaborative approach to Environmental Stewardship

Impressions signatures

The Impressions digital signatures platform allows users to view, sign and send sensitive documents online. As well as establishing a secure chain of custody (all digital signatures are contextually aware, enhanced with GPS location, device and network identifiers), using Impressions at enterprise level can result in significant savings in paper used. Up to 80 000 documents a year can be signed digitally instead of being printed, resulting in nearly four tonnes of paper being diverted from landfill (assuming an average of five pages per document).

NEXTEC

In Cape Town, South Africa, and Chennai, India, 'Day Zero' events where cities run out of water - have drawn global media attention. Drought indicators in Cape Town from as early as 2014/2015 served as a warning that this day would come. By 2019, the city's population had grown to 4.3 million people. At the time, the average household consumption stood at 1 110 megalitres per day across 1.4 million households.

The City of Cape Town implemented measures that reduced water demand to 650 megalitres per day through non-technological interventions, but it was evident it needed to reduce consumption even further to ensure water supply and avoid Day Zero.

As a partner to the City of Cape Town for 10 years, we were able to find a solution to prevent Day Zero from occurring through our water conservation and demand management framework. The framework included consumer education strategies, tariff management solutions, pressure management solutions - conventional and advanced - and active leak detection and repair solutions based on machine learning, automation and data analytics.

Other tasks included:

• a complete water leak analysis;
• identifying consumers using more than 10 kilolitres of water per day; and
• initiating repair programmes on respective leaks.

The programme officially began in January 2019 to optimise 116 existing pressure management zones. This included:

• isolating sectorised areas to only feed water through specific pipelines;
• installing pressure-reducing valves into the respective channels to reduce consumption and leakage; and
• deploying our smart POD controllers to intelligently manage control valves in 'pressure management zones' using a built-in algorithm.

We retrofitted these controllers into existing pressure-reducing valves to automatically change the pressure at the pipeline of value ('POV'). Built-in data loggers monitor the flow activity and adjust the pressure accordingly - depending on the pre-set criteria.

To put this into perspective, one Olympic swimming pool holds 2.5 million litres of water, which means we saved the equivalent of 15 Olympic swimming pools of water every day.

Under normal circumstances, these results could take between three to five years to achieve. However, due to the severity of the water crisis in 2019, NEXTEC and the City of Cape Town solved the water challenge rapidly - and successfully - within just eight months.

Dihlase

NEXTEC subsidiary Dihlase provided consulting engineering services to customers who wish to install solar PV solutions to reduce their dependency on the national electricity grid and also provide energy efficient solutions for electrical and mechanical ('HVAC') installations for cleaner and smarter buildings.