ActionSA’s Hammanskraal water report nails Tshwane

Pretoria - For the past 16 years, the City of Tshwane has failed to provide clean and drinkable water to Hammanskraal residents in line with the Constitution, which guarantees access to sufficient water.

This was according to the “damning” findings by panellists of an independent commission of inquiry into the Hammanskraal water crisis during the public hearing conducted in April at the Ebenezer Bible Church in Temba.

The commission was mandated by ActionSA and chaired by advocate Professor Jonas Letsoalo.

Yesterday, Letsoalo officially handed over the inquiry report to ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba at the Rooiwal wastewater treatment plant.

For many years the plant has come under criticism for being the source of dirty water consumed by people in Hammanskraal due to its lack of capacity to purify waste water, resulting in sludge being discharged into the Apies River.

The Apies River in turn supplied water to Temba water treatment plant, used for purifying water for the Hammanskraal residents.

In December, the City’s MMC for utility services and regional operation co-ordination, Phillip Nel, reported that a multimillion-rand project to upgrade Rooiwal wastewater treatment plant was in full swing and was envisaged to be completed in July 2022.

Despite the City’s work already under way to fix the problem of water in Hammanskraal, the commission said it was never reflected on its report because nobody came to represent the municipality during the hearing.

Letsoalo said: “The commission invited the mayor. There was no response; not even the presence. Second point: we applied for access into the Rooiwal wastewater plant that was denied.

“And our question is, ’what is the municipality hiding from us?’ By the time the commission was held we had no such information that reconstruction or renewal, whatever you name it, had started.”

Instead, he suggested that the City started pulling its socks up after it heard about the work of the commission.

Part of the findings of the commission found that “the City of Tshwane has dismally, delinquently and hopelessly failed to be accountable and responsive to the water needs of the Hammanskraal and surrounding communities for the past 16 years”.

“Besides there not being sufficient water provided, the little water that was supplied was contaminated with human waste and/or had a bad smell of chlorine or human waste,” the report said.

Mashaba said: “Today, the independent commission of inquiry into the Hammanskraal water crisis releases the damning findings against the City of Tshwane.

“The findings contained in an extensive report made it abundantly clear that the city has failed to provide safe water to the community.”

He led party members to Tshwane House, where he submitted the report to mayor Randall Williams and demanded that the municipality must respond to the findings within 90 days.

“We are giving him 90 days to look at the recommendations and ensure that the people of Hammanskraal receive clean and drinkable water. In the event of his failure, ActionSA will then have further legal options available to us,” he said.

On what more ActionSA expected the City to do in addition to the Rooiwal upgrade already under way, party mayoral candidate Abel Tau said: “If you are asking us to have confidence to say there is work that is being done, I think you are almost asking us to be confident that Bafana will win the World Cup.”

He said the City’s short-term solution of ferrying water to residents through water tankers was marred by a myriad challenges, including delays of water provision.

Williams said: “I don't think we need to wait for 90 days before you start giving the response back to the residents.”

He said the information about what the City was doing to address water challenges in Hammanskraal was readily available and was ready to share with ActionSA.

“Because at the end of the day the whole exercise was in the interests of the residents, and if there is information that the residents should know I think you should welcome it.

“To say to the residents that the solution has already started to address this challenge. And that is why we wanted to make this available to you. We don’t want to give this information 90 times,” Williams said.

He was, however, stopped short by Mashaba, who refused to be the mouthpiece of the municipality by relaying Williams’s information to residents.

“We can not really have faith in what is going to be presented to us because it has not really been tested. Before we can communicate it to the residents we have to test it ourselves, where we will be working with professional people to test whether what you are telling us can be verified or not,” he said.

He brushed aside suggestions that he was merely politicking by releasing the report on the inquiry commissioned by his political party into the quality of water in Hammanskraal.

Pretoria News

Fri, 06 Aug 2021 07:33:50 GMTRapula Moatshe

Share this post