By Luvuyo Mjekula
The Democratic Alliance in the Eastern Cape has vowed to get to the bottom of the water crisis plaguing the community of Makhanda in the Makana Municipality.
On Tuesday, 9 January, DA provincial leader and member of parliament Andrew Whitfield led a team of various party leaders and councillors on an oversight inspection of water infrastructure in Makhanda.
Frontier Constituency leader and member of parliament Kevin Mileham, DA Cogta shadow MEC Vicky Knoetze and local councillors Luvuyo Sizani and Cary Clarke joined Whitfield.
In a statement released prior to the inspection, the party expressed its determination to hold those they deemed to be responsible for the crisis accountable on behalf of local residents.
“Residents of the Makana Municipality continue to suffer due to a lack of water. The DA will not falter in its fight to rescue the residents of Makana who are being denied their constitutional right to access to water,” the party said in the statement.
Addressing journalists outside the Waainek Water Treatment Works (WTW), Mileham said the party had identified several issues that needed urgent intervention and action from the DA.
According to Mileham, local councillors would urgently push for the appointment of an infrastructure director as well as a water services manager in Makana Municipality. “That’s a priority that we have those positions filled. You can’t have blank spots on an organogram for something as critical as water.”
The councillors would also enquire about the missing R2.6million and get it recovered, and then get new pumps installed.
A Makana Director of Engineering and Infrastructural Services, Asanda Gidana, came under fire last year after a tender to procure water pumps became the subject of an investigation, eventually leading to disciplinary action against the director. An amount of R2.6m allegedly paid for the work that was never done.
“We have got to get that happening because we need the water to come out of Howieson’s Poort up to Waainek so that we can provide the high ground of Makhanda with water.
Knoetze would push for the MEC of water and sanitation to come to Makana and “see what is going on and put pressure on the mayor and on council to actually sort out this problem”.
Knoetze would also be asked to facilitate the role definition between Makana Municipality and Amatola Water. “Until that is resolved, everyone is going to say, ‘It’s not my job’.”
Mileham and Whitfield would try and get the national minister of water and sanitation to come to Makhanda to try and deal with the crisis.
“We cannot have what was once the jewel in the crown of the Eastern Cape – this municipality was the most beautiful municipality in the Eastern Cape in the past, but now, It’s been left to rot, and we need to do something about it.”
Also forming part of the delegation was retired engineer Peter Sturrock, who helped provide a broad outline of the water supply system in the Makana Municipality in Makhanda.
According to Sturrock, the original water supply was from Howieson’s Poort to Waainek WTW. And that supplied the town of Makhanda. But as the town grew, it needed more water, and because of the elevation on one side of the town, water could not reach certain areas.
As a result, said Sturrock, the Glen Melville Dam and James Kleyhans Water Treatment Works, located about 12km towards outside Makhanda Fort Beaufort, was constructed, from where water would get pumped to Botha’s Hill and various reservoirs.
Sturrock explained that recently, and due to the drought, Settlers Dam and Howieson’s Poort did not have water, and a transfer pipeline that connected the Botha’s Hill system to that of the reservoirs on the Western side of town had to be built.
However, he said the drought has now broken, Howieson’s Poort is full, and Settlers Dam is overflowing for the first time in eight years.
“Everybody is very excited about it. So now there should be abundant water for everybody. Unfortunately, that is not the case, and some areas of town have not been getting water for weeks on end.
“There should be no reason why there should be a shortage of water from Howieson’s Poort and from James Kleyhans – that project is running late; the expansion there should have been finished years ago.
“But they are both not functioning properly – there have been a number of reasons, one being that just when there was first water at Howieson’s Poort, there used to be three pumps there, but because they had not been running for some time, they got damaged and had not been maintained properly, and were sent to a factory in Johannesburg. They were left with one operational pump – it can pump the full capacity for this WTW, but you can never run one pump 24/7; you need to stop for maintenance, and then you get problems and breakdowns, and so on. And so Howieson’s Poort has been operating erratically,” said Sturrock.
He said major leakages on the main pipeline also caused serious problems. “The problems have alternated – first the leak in the pipeline, then it’s the pumps not working, then a leak in the pipeline again…they never seem to be able to get it in unison for a consistent period of time. On the James Kleynhans side, that Water Treatment Works can produce 12 mega litres of water per day at the moment. They had a problem three years ago when the pump station got flooded, and they had to cut back and so on, but there is an expansion programme that has been going on there to expand it to 20 mega litres a day. That has been postponed – the first contractor was thrown off the site for not performing properly, the second one went bankrupt and left.”
According to Sturrock, there is a third contractor, but because of the development that has seen Amatola Water given control of the bulk water supply by the Department of Water and Sanitation, it is unclear what the way forward would look like.
Asked if the water problems were a result of management issues, including procurement, maintenance and other operational deficiencies at the municipality, Sturrock said: “There was a time when the drought was an issue, but it’s not an issue anymore. I think the overriding problem that threads through the whole thing is a management problem.”
“It was exacerbated a bit by the drought. But water at James Kleynhans comes from the Orange River, and there is always capacity there. If that had been completed on time, they wouldn’t have had the problem of shortage of water, even during the drought.”
Asked how much water was being lost in the streets of Makhanda, Sturrock explained: “The figures vary hugely. The estimate is that the town needs 18 mega litres of water per day from both sides, which should not be a problem even as it stands now because we have 12 mega litres even before that expansion is completed; we have got 8 mega litres from here (Waainek) when it is working. But that 18 mega litres does not allow for the spillage, the wastage, or the leaks. Some people say that is as much as 40%, and I can believe that.”
Sturrock and the DA all called for the municipality to welcome advice from local experts who have made themselves available.
