DWS sets up temporary measures to Hammanskraal's water woes as Rooiwal plant still incomplete
People living in the town outside Pretoria are still not able to drink water from their taps, a year after a cholera outbreak hit the area, leading to the deaths of 23 people.
Rooiwal waste water treatment plant. Picture: X/@tshwane_mayor
JOHANNESBURG - Hammanskraal residents will have to make do with the government’s temporary measures for water as the Rooiwal wastewater treatment plan remains incomplete.
People living in the town outside Pretoria are still not able to drink water from their taps, a year after a cholera outbreak hit the area, leading to the deaths of 23 people.
The project to rehabilitate the plant has been was marred by tender corruption, which has been investigated by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU).
It’s the work of the City of Tshwane to repair and expand the dysfunctional Rooiwal wastewater treatment plant and the city has issued a new tender for the job.
In the meantime, however, the Water and Sanitation Department has had to intervene, roping in the Magalies wastewater treatment works to supply the people of Hammanskraal.
Director-General Sean Phillips: "We have gone over and above our normal role as the national department in terms of our constitutional responsibilities in terms of making an allocation with Treasury approval to Magalies Water to build additional treatment capacity at its own water treatment works, which doesn’t normally supply Hammanskraal."
Phillips said the Magalies plant was being built in four phases, which would run until June next year.
However, he said it was going to take longer than that for Tshwane to repair its Rooiwal operation.