By Luvuyo Mjekula
Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) MEC Zolile Williams is putting in place immediate measures to help manage the water crisis in the Makana Municipality.
These include stopping water leaks, automating the operation of reservoirs and ramping up revenue collection.
To attend to water leaks, the MEC plans to deploy an engineer to Makhanda. “I am deploying an engineer from Monday [this week]to come and support the municipality because there is too much water loss. As we speak there are water leaks not being attended to,” Williams said.
He is also considering the viability of automating some systems. Currently, the municipality is employing a water rationing strategy which requires workers to switch water valves at the plants off in the evenings and back on in the early hours of the morning.
“I am here to look at whether we cannot mechanise the systems which are manually handled, because you may find out that those reservoirs that need to be pumped overnight, you just need a technological system that can allow them to pump at a particular time so that you don’t need manual labour, which results in overtime,” Williams said.
He was addressing journalists at Makana’s City Hall on Friday last week.
The MEC arrived in Makhanda on Friday morning and spent much of the day locked in meetings with the municipality’s leadership, councillors and ratepayer associations at the City Hall.
Asked when the residents of Makhanda should expect consistent water supply, Williams said: “I cannot have a definitive period when they will have water sustainably, but when [former Water and Sanitation]minister Senzo Mchunu was here, we discussed and he promised that we must intervene through upgrading the infrastructure, the water reticulation system, so that it is able to provide water sustainably.”
Mchunu has recently been appointed Police minister. “However, I am intending to continue discussions with [recently appointed Water and Sanitation minister Pemmy Majodina to proceed with Mchunu’s promise, which I think is viable for this municipality, because the 20MGL intervention we are implementing at the plant will be unhelpful if it is going to be lost in the system due to water losses. We must work hard to get support from the minister. It is my one of my programmes to engage with the minister to ensure sustainable water to the residents of Makhanda.”
Williams criticised the municipality for the events of the past week that saw parts of Makhanda going without water, leading to Rhodes University suspending academic programmes. “I’m also sitting with the municipality to say the activities of the past week are regrettable and I don’t want to see them.”
He said a dispute between the municipality and its employees should not have led to residents being deprived of water. “The challenge is that regardless of its veracity, I do not expect the dispute to spill over to the public. The worst part is that the public was never informed that there was going to be challenges of water.
“I feel that the municipality has not handled communication with the public well, which is one of the fundamental aspects of local government, that the public must be taken on board on matters that are going to affect them, especially service delivery. In terms of the constitution, water is a right. This has impacted the local economy where the university had to close. It’s regrettable,” said Williams.
He also condemned reports of sabotage of water systems, allegedly by some of the municipality’s workers.
He encouraged the municipality to ramp up its communication. “I would wish the municipality understands that any service we cannot be able to deliver, we must be prompt in terms of communicating our challenges so that the public can understand what we are doing to solve the problems.”
The MEC also raised concerns about the municipality’s cashflow challenges. “We are fully aware that this municipality is under financial recovery and once it is stressed by overtime, it can result in financial challenges in terms of cash flow, so we would want to manage that so it does not affect the municipality where we would see an inability to pay salaries. That’s why I am here, just to look at issues we can do quickly to prevent an occurrence of a similar nature.”
Williams said he would look at the municipality’s financial systems because of challenges of revenue collection. “I would want to analyse that quickly and see if I cannot bring in another support to focus on finances.”
“Currently I am intervening in terms of 154, hence the engineer. I will also look at their financial systems because there are challenges of revenue collection. I would want to analyse that quickly and see if I cannot bring in another support to focus on finances.
“This municipality needs to work hard to get out of financial recovery, that’s what I’m going to be talking about with the mayor and the council, because we cannot adapt to a wrong situation. I think this municipality is trying to adapt to being under financial recovery for a long time. That cannot be accepted.”
