ActionSA in Tshwane has vowed to keep in check ongoing work to upgrade Rooiwal wastewater treatment plant with a view to provide clean and drinkable water to Hammanskraal residents.
This comes after Minister of Water and Sanitation Senzo Mchunu and Tshwane Mayor Cilliers Brink visited the facility this week, assuring residents that the Rooiwal refurbishment project was on track.
Mchunu promised that residents in the township would access potable water in September this year through the Klipdrift Package Plant.
Brink said the once operational package plant would allow the City to eliminate the water tankers currently commissioned to supply water to communities.
ActionSA caucus leader Jackie Mathabathe said the party has constantly championed the cause for Hammanskraal people to get potable water.
“The people of Hammanskraal have, for over 18 years, suffered from not being supplied with drinkable and usable water with no help in sight,” he said.
He lashed out at the ANC for failing to correct the problem, saying the ruling party had almost 20 years to do so.
He said it was because of ActionSA’s advocacy that the two companies, linked to controversial businessman Edwin Sodi to refurbish Rooiwal, had their contract terminated.
Mathabathe said: “It was the ActionSA Tshwane caucus that spearheaded this and forced political will to source and disburse funds to the tune of R450 million over three years to ensure the provision of clean, potable water for the people of Hammanskraal.”
He stressed that the party would “continue to closely monitor this process to ensure that we prevent a repeat of the characteristic appointment of incompetent companies”.
The party previously conducted an independent forensic study that revealed scathing findings about the quality of the water in the township.
Mathabathe said: “We submitted this report to the then Mayor Randall Williams, who ignored it and ultimately pursued the matter through the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), which instituted a forensic investigation against officials and politicians who may have flouted the process in the appointment of a contractor. This led to Edwin Sodi’s companies, which had by then earned R71 million from the City, doing nothing to finally vacate the site, making way for what we see happening today.”
Tshwane municipal manager Johann Mettler in February requested the National Treasury to blacklist both NJR Projects and Blackhead Consulting companies linked to businessman Edwin Sodi from doing business with the government.
Both companies were implicated in a R295 million tender to upgrade Rooiwal. City terminated the contract following significant problems and delays with the quality of the work on the site due to continuous stalling of Phase 1 of the project in August 2022.
The companies are under investigation by the SIU due to allegations of maladministration and corruption.
The Rooiwal upgrades are important to improve the plant’s capacity to purify waste water. This results in the sludge being discharged into the Apies River which in turn supplies water to Temba water treatment plant that purifies water for the Hammanskraal residents.
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