One of Gauteng municipalities which was flagged for poor maintenance of its waste water treatment plant has hired Rand Water to take over its facility.
The Auditor-General of SA (AG) sounded the alarm on Rand West City local municipality and Tshwane metro whose poor maintenance of their waste water treatment plants she said posed a risk of harming the public and the environment.
In her consolidated general report on local government audit outcomes 2021/22 released last week, AG Tsakani Maluleke warned that lack of maintenance of waste water plants often resulted in untreated waste water sipping into water sources such as rivers.
The AG had inspected the city’s Randfontein plant earlier in the year and picked flaws on its management and maintenance. The municipality services Westonaria and Randfontein, west of Joburg.
“This had a negative effect on the municipalities’ ability to provide clean water to communities and to preserve the environment. We notified the municipal managers of both municipalities of material irregularities because the discharge of untreated wastewater is likely to cause harm to the general public,” she said.
The warning came at the time the City of Tshwane and the department of health scrambled to contain a cholera outbreak that had resulted in 24 deaths in Hammanskraal, one in Mpumalanga and another in Free State.
The Rand West City municipality’s municipal manager Thabo Ndlovu, however, said it had made interventions to fix its Randfontein plant by hiring Rand Water to maintain it and upskill their workers who are meant to carry out work on the site.
“There was insufficient knowledge and capacity in reference to the operation of a bio-waste water treatment works plant of this nature. The municipality has since contracted Rand Water which have been tasked to assist with the operation and maintenance of the plant. This is a capacity-building programme which incorporates the transfer of skills which have been included in the agreement,” wrote Ndlovu.
He further told Sowetan this week that the council had appointed four process controllers in April and that they are doing monthly sampling of the water. The council will soon add 16 more process controllers to its staff “so that the municipality would be in a position to run its waste water treatment plants by itself”.
In 2018 the municipality invited companies to bid for the refurbishment of Hannes Van Niekerk Water Treatment Plant which has so far cost the council R70m. The Badirile plant has cost the municipality R31m.
When Sowetan visited the Hannes Van Niekerk plant we saw what looks like new structures, some with broken switches but there were no workers on site. Some of the old water structures were carrying stagnant sewage and there was overgrown grass. Some buildings appeared vandalised and had broken windows.
According to DA caucus leader in the area Hullet Hild, the plant’s pump station has not been functioning which led to massive backwash of sewage into residents' yards.
Areas such as Bekkersdal and Randfontein have been experiencing sewage backwashes.
“This is as a result of years of lack of maintaining waste treatment plants and a shortage of skilled personnel to run and maintain the infrastructure. Pump stations are meant to pump raw sewer into the system and rework it into levels where is is safely discarded either back into the system or into the rivers and the small streams.
“If the pump stations are not working the system will just build up all the sewer to a point of spilling over. This problem is prevalent throughout the whole city because the infrastructure is not functioning as it should.”
Bekkersdal residents we spoke to told Sowetan that they had been struggling with overflowing communal sewers for years.
Along Nkosi Street about four houses were flooded with dirty water that flowed onto the street all the way down to the adjacent Panyapanya Street where it forms puddle, making it difficult for pedestrians and motorists alike to navigate.
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