Africa-Press – South-Africa. Water & sanitation minister Pemmy Majodina has confirmed that millions of rand in taxpayers’ money has been paid to contractors for water infrastructure projects that remain unfinished, leaving many communities without clean and reliable water.
Speaking on the sidelines of the ANC’s NEC meeting in Boksburg on Saturday, Majodina revealed that syndicates dubbed “water mafias” are exploiting the sector.
“The water mafias are beyond a count in the North West, wherein people go there, the extortionists they demand A, B and C and they stop the project. So we are also working with the South African Police Service in ensuring that we deal with water mafias,” she said.
Majodina said projects dating back to 2016 remain incomplete, particularly in North West despite municipalities receiving funds through national infrastructure grants.
“In North West we launched Operation Bulela Metsi and we identified the 10 most critical municipalities that were not getting water and we funded North West on the original bulk water services infrastructure grant. When we do that, we transfer money to municipalities to appoint contractors to augment the infrastructure that they have,” said Majodina.
However, many of those projects never materialised.
“I must say to you, since 2016 to date, there are projects that are incomplete and they are incomplete because they are on schedule 5 wherein it is municipalities that appoint contractors.”
Majodina said her department has now intervened to take back those funds and directly appoint implementing agents to finish the work.
“It is unfortunate that as we do that, the cost has escalated. If we have budgeted R13m for that water treatment plant now the water treatment plant is R24m,” she said.
Johannesburg and other metros continue to battle widespread water outages caused by burst pipes, ageing infrastructure and rising demand. Johannesburg residents recently endured multi-day outages without prior warning or the provision of water tankers, sparking a public outrage.
Majodina said municipalities must urgently address leaks, which prevent reservoirs from being filled.
“This is what is happening here in Johannesburg. Their reservoirs are less than the demand in terms of water supply. They are unable to fill up those reservoirs because the demand is too much, but also the water leaks.”
“We agreed in March that by the end of September, we are going to collect reports from all municipalities that are part of the national Indaba on water to say, ‘how far did you go?’ There are about seven municipalities that have already closed their leaks. And they are saying, ‘now we are able to fill up our reservoirs.”
The minister added that poor communication from municipalities worsens frustrations during outages.
“What is lacking in municipalities is communication. When they do maintenance or they pipe burst, they don’t respond quickly. That is why through Rand Water we have embarked on major maintenance on all big water pipelines that supply Gauteng especially the metros Ekurhuleni, Tshwane and Johannesburg up to North West.”
Majodina said the department is also exploring groundwater as a quicker way of bringing relief to water-starved communities.
“The third one that we are doing in North West is to explore groundwater. So we want to get groundwater because with groundwater you are able to drill the boreholes and people get water now.”
Meanwhile, water protests have been erupting in several parts of the country as communities demand urgent solutions to what has become one of South Africa’s most pressing service delivery crises.
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