Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs Rejoice Mabudafhasi was in Grahamstown to celebrate International Weed Buster Day and also to celebrate the 18th birthday of Working for Water project.
Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs Rejoice Mabudafhasi was in Grahamstown to celebrate International Weed Buster Day and also to celebrate the 18th birthday of Working for Water project.
Mabudafhasi explaining the purposes of her visit told Grocott's Mail that Wednesday 16 October was International Weed Buster Day and also the celebration of Working for Water project which was started by the late Professor Kadar Asmal.
"It is the international Weed Buster week, people don't know that so today as we are celebrating this week, we also celebrate the birthday of Working for Water which is dealing with Alien Invasive species that eat water, on the other hand we are creating a lot of jobs through the Alien Invasive species we are making furniture and today we are going to also handover 200 desks from that to a local school here in Grahamstown," she said.
Working for Water was a brainchild Asmal when he was the Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, his wife Louise Asmal was also amongst the guests of the Deputy minister.
Mabudafhasi also donated over 200 desks made of alien invasive species to Nombulelo High school in Joza. She said with the species they also do eco-coffins and at the Cop-17 their eco-coffin won a prize in 2011. "They have never seen such a thing, so we must be proud of what we do, we have employed also a lot of people especially people with disabilities," said Mabudafhasi.
She also visited the Bio-control rearing facility at the South African Institute of Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB) at Rhodes University which she said has also employed disabled people in the rearing of weed busters.
"The working for Water Initiative here is implemented by Professor Martin Hill and his staff, and almost exclusively disabled workers. We visited the breeding ponds for biological control agents against water hyacinth, the world's worst water weed."
She also unveiled a plaque of Wildlife and Environmental Society of Southern Africa at the Grey Dam. The deputy minister said she was aware of the water crisis in Grahamstown. “I want to acknowledge that there are critical water-management challenges facing the Makana Municipality and to assure you that were are working around the clock to support the local municipality to resolve these problems,” Mabudafhasi said.
She said South Africa is a water-stressed country, and the most parts of the country are dry. "The main challenge is that we have inherited aged infrastructure the whole of South Africa; infrastructure that is 80 years old or more that 100 years, now it's bursting left and right. The population growth is another challenge, all of a sudden because of the economic activity the numbers are growing and the infrastructure cannot cope." She said the water crisis was not something of their making."
"We are working on that, we are trying as government to assist municipalities but we will need billions actually to replace the infrastructure," Mabudafhasi explained.
