Pretoria - The stalling of the project to upgrade the Rooiwal Waste Water Treatment Plant due to a contract recently terminated by the City of Tshwane has been described as “devastating” for Hammanskraal residents.
This was the view of ActionSA Tshwane leader Oupa Mathibela during a visit by his party to the plant yesterday.
For years residents have not had access to drinkable water, and the Rooiwal plant was identified as the source of dirty water owing to its lack of capacity to purify wastewater, resulting in sludge being discharged into the Apies River.
Reacting to a decision to put the project on hold, Mathibela said: “It is devastating news for the people. You know people look at it from the angle of the contract and politics and political parties not agreeing. But when you look at it from the point of view of residents, it is devastating.”
The purpose of the party’s visit was to inspect whether the budget already spent on the project was justified by the type of work done on-site.
Mathibela was accompanied by party chief whip Sizwe Skhosana, regional executive members, and the provincial executive member responsible for rural communities, Alderman Hannes Coetzee.
They were prevented from entering the premises, but Mathibela said: “From what we could see, the contractor has not been on site for a while.”
He also said that from a distance they could tell that “the work is just about 50% done and no work has been completed”.
He said the cancellation of the contract meant the City had to find another contractor, “who might come in and say that the work that has been done is shoddy and that we have to start afresh”.
“That will take us more years (to complete the project), and that is notwithstanding the money that must be used. So, the residents of Hammanskraal will have to continue like this for a long time without clean drinkable water,” he said.
Asked whether his party was not using the Hammanskraal water crisis as a political football, he said: “We are definitely not. Look, we started this thing before we even started with our campaigns (for the 2019 municipal elections).
“We spoke about it during the campaigns. The voting is done now and we are in council and we are actually part of the government. So if we are using it just for politics, we would be quiet about it right now.”
ActionSA has previously raised concerns over the contract, questioning why it was awarded to a joint venture linked to businessman Edwin Sodi, which had no experience in these type of infrastructure projects.
Tshwane’s Utility Services MMC Daryl Johnston said the municipality would prevent further delays in the project by embarking on a process to appoint a new contractor. “Our most immediate steps will be to terminate the contract and to initiate legal action against the joint venture to reclaim an amount of about R29 million in terms of the non-performance clauses of the contract.
“Furthermore, we will inform the National Treasury to blacklist this joint venture. We will also go to market to ensure the remaining work at the plant is completed,” he said.
Pretoria News