I partly agree Anton. The part is that procurement regulations are so all-pervasive and cumbersome that even appointing a well-qualified specialist firm to undertake a study (such as one into water supply and use options) is a tedious exercise in tender document generation. To ignore regulation and central government invites legal challenge and interdict so it is risky and could delay the process even further. Selecting such a service provider by tender also invites a supplier with a profit motive rather than one who will make every effort to find the best technical solution.  Considering that the solution is likely to cost many orders of magnitude more than the study to select it, undertaking the study based on cost (as well as technical competence) may not be that sensible.