Giyani Bulk Water Project Progress Report: Mopani District Municipality & DWS briefing; with Minister

Meeting report

After the Committee had been advised of apologies, Ms R Mohlala (EFF) proposed that the apology of the Executive Mayor of Mopani Municipality, Mr Pule Shayi, should not be accepted as this was not showing respect to the Committee, because he had to account to it.

This proposal was supported by the Chairperson, who highlighted that it was not the first time that the Mayor had not presented himself to the Committee to account for the work being done in Mopani. He emphasised the importance of the Mayor, and anyone who was supposed to account, to ensure that they made that a priority, as the work done by the Committee was important.

Minister Senzo Mchunu, Minister of Water and Sanitation (DWS), thanked the Committee for the opportunity to present on the progress at Mopani, and handed over to the Deputy Director-General (DDG): Water Services Management, Mr Risimati Mathye, to continue with the presentation.

DWS Presentation

Nandoni Water Service Scheme

Mr Mathye said Nandoni Dam currently supplies water to Vhembe District Municipality, and it was intended to supply Mopani District Municipality and the northern parts of Capricorn District Municipality, targeting an estimated population of 1.1 million. The dam was being upgraded, and the upgrade from 60 Ml/d to 120 Ml/d would feed the bulk water pipeline projects that the DWS was implementing to extend the supply from Nandoni water treatment works to Malamulele, Vuwani, Elim, Makhado and the Sinthumule Kutama areas. The upgrade of the water treatment works project was under planning, and construction was planned to commence in January 2024. It was anticipated to be completed in December 2025.

Nandoni to Nsami project overview

The agreed approach to expedite the project's completion included converting the Nandoni-Nsami system to transfer raw water to Giyani. This involved expanding the existing raw water pump station Nandoni to cater for the Nsami/Giyani pipeline, and utilising the existing new infrastructure to support the Mavambe bulk main pipe, which includes modifying the existing Mavambe pump station at Nandoni. The overall progress to date was 95.7%, and the 40 km pipeline had been completed.

Giyani Water Treatment Works refurbishment and upgrade

A contractor for phase 1 of the project (refurbishment) of the existing 30 Ml/d was appointed in December 2022 at R42 million. The overall progress was at 61%. The contractor had started with critical items, such as repairs on sedimentation and filtration systems. Phase 2 of the project, which was the upgrade of the water treatment work from 30 MI/d to 40 MI/d, was at the planning stage and construction was anticipated to commence in April 2024 for a duration of 24 months.

Giyani Water Service Project

Construction commenced in August 2014 and included the revitalisation of 154 boreholes and the installation of package plants. 128 had been done, but most were extremely vandalised and not operational – 86 were operational and 68 non-operational as per the last assessment done in March 2021. Overall, there was 64% progress on the project, and the completion date had been revised from December 2023 to June 2024 due to delays in procurement, poor performance and the termination of sub-contractors. The DWS had developed mitigation efforts to respond to these delays, including attending to procurement challenges that affected the performance of DWS Construction North, such as the lack of diesel. Furthermore, a multi-stakeholder task team was in place to address issues raised by the stakeholders to avoid the stoppage of the project. The scope of works had also been re-evaluated, and a process had been initiated to appoint a capable contractor to complete the remaining works.

Reticulation to 55 villages in Giyani

In August 2022, the Giyani reticulation programme was initiated to complete the water service value chain in Giyani at an estimated total cost on completion of R1.3 billion. Phase 1 of the programme for reticulation of 24 villages had started, with 37 contractors being appointed for the project through the Water Services Infrastructure Grant (WSIG) funding under Schedule 6B. Completion dates varied, depending on the date that the contractor was appointed and started with the work. The projects would be completed progressively per village, starting from December 2023 to July 2024. These reticulation projects were expected to be completed within 12 months from the day of starting work.

See attached for full presentation

Minister's comments

Minister Mchunu told the Committee that the Nandoni project had been completed in 2004. That was a fairly long period since completion, and the Department should not be where it was in almost all aspects of the project. However, before the commencement of the project, many things had to be cleared, especially the communities around the area. Issues with the communities surrounding Nandoni Dam had been cleared to a large extent, but there were still a few outstanding things. What was good was that the relations with the surrounding communities had been restored. In the greater scheme of things, however, in the village of Vhembe where the dam is, the Department was still quite low in terms of satisfying the community’s demands.

The Department’s planning for both Vhembe and Mopani had been at a slightly higher level. To make available clean water that would have been treated, 60 megalitres would have to be added, and they were already planning over and above that additional 60 megalitres for the targeted areas. Malamulele was getting covered, but the other areas close to Nandoni were presently not as well off as Malamulele. Overall, planning was getting better in terms of that area of work.

He added that the big pipeline in Mopani had been completed. When Action South Africa stated in the media that they would be suing the Department for failure to complete these projects, such actions were accepted with humility, as anyone had the right to go to court in whatever capacity. However, the fact of the matter remained that the Department had undertaken to complete the project, but it was not anticipated the extent to which there were going to be stoppages and delays. What was good now was the completion of the river crossing and the removal of temporary connections, starting with the pump dam itself and its replacement with permanent equipment.

The Minister added that the DWS was due to go back to the reticulation aspect to support, encourage, and put pressure on everyone in Mopane, including abandoned contractors. The Department would spend at least a day at Nsami to assess its capacity, and then go to work on the refurbishment to monitor progress, including the pipeline. Adding to that, the Department had been working on the whole value chain in the delivery of water and there was a commitment not to end there, but also to deal with the whole value chain up to yard connections, where people could drink water from their taps. A lot of progress had been made in getting water to the yards of the people of Giyani, and the Department was closer than it was two years ago when there was no pipe to talk about, or the Malamulele line of clean water, and no reticulation or refurbishment.

Discussion

The Chairperson said the report on the progress made by the Department would have resonated well had it been presented by the Mayor in absentia, highlighting that sometimes people in the communities did not necessarily have a full understanding of the work that had been done.

Mr G Hendricks (AI Jama-ah) asked the Minister if there was a parallel process each day to ensure that money was not continuously being stolen, especially following the reports of corruption.

He said that because of contractors' incapacity, there had been problems over the years in terms of the completion of projects, with the government going out of its way to assist them by even making sure that they got the equipment needed for these projects. Therefore, besides watching the money, he wanted to know from the Minister if he was also finding ways and means to compensate and assist the contractors if they ran out of funding.

He suggested that upgrading water treatment plants was not a good idea. One could not create dams, but one could build water treatment plants. Therefore, the Department should rather decentralise the water treatment plants. It was thus a matter of policy that the Minister should consider -- that the Department should not go for upgrading, but should build more water treatment plants. This was because if there were problems at an upgraded water treatment plant, it affected so many villages. On the other hand, if one had two or three water treatment plants in the pipeline, and the main one gave problems, it did not mean that there would be Day Zero.

Ms Mohlala asked why the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) had not been invited to this briefing, as they were the critical role players in overseeing the disbursement of grant funding for water services provision. If CoGTA had been available in the meeting, the Committee would have been able to get more clarity on some of the issues outlined in the presentation.

She added that the Department could build dams. However, the reticulation of water to the people was the problem, as government spent billions of rands on these processes, but getting the water to the communities was proving to be a problem. What was being experienced in Mopane was not the first issue, as such issues had been raised in various parts of the country, where people surrounding a big dam did not have water in their communities.

She asked if the implementation readiness study on the Nandoni Water Treatment Works upgrade had commenced. What was the interaction between the  DWS and CoGTA in addressing the challenges faced, as this meeting was not addressing the root causes of the different mandates for water service provision?

How many more years would the DWS operate on the basis of taking over the functions and responsibilities of the municipalities that were not fulfilling their responsibilities? She pointed out that the Minister, in his presentation, had said that the Department was trying to assist, but when one went down to the municipalities, nothing was being done.  

Was there any move by the state to declare critical water and sanitation infrastructure projects as key points, with the necessary security to reduce the country-wide vandalism of infrastructure which impacted service delivery to communities? She stressed that the Department should make sure that people were protected from cholera and other illnesses which may erupt because of poor water and sanitation.

Mr A Tseki (ANC) asked what the main source of the Nandoni water supply was. This was mainly because the good work that the Department had done may also be impacted by the dryness of the dam, depending on the season.

In the long run, how was the Department planning to receive revenue from these projects? Was the water going to be completely free, or would there be a means to collect revenue in order to pay for these projects?

An issue had been raised regarding tampering with the pipelines for irrigation, and the Committee had been informed that the Department would be engaging community leaders to avoid such vandalism. He said there seemed to be more replacing of boreholes, but there had been no mention of law enforcement to curb such vandalism.

With the expected population growth, how was the DWS developing plans for the growth of the villages, especially if there would be a need to extend the pipeline?

Responses

The Chairperson responded to Ms Mohlala, indicating that the invitation of CoGTA to the meeting should be a decision of the Committee. It would not have been a correct procedure to invite CoGTA to have a joint meeting without this being agreed to by the sitting Committee. Although CoGTA was important in the oversight process, the DWS must be given the space to account before the Committee about the work that had been done, as they were responsible for water infrastructure and water delivery to communities.

The Minister said that to deal with vandalism and corruption, parallel programmes were underway, such as the involvement of the Special Investigating Unit (SIU). There was a case that was in court over a claim amounting to about R2 billion against various individuals and companies, all flowing from corruption. To a large extent, some efforts have been put in place to prevent more corruption. The Department was doing its best to prevent corruption and the efforts put in place were positively impacting reducing it, but nothing was being taken for granted.

In terms of capacitating efforts, he said this was being dealt with by encouraging people to sub-contract, and those who had bigger contracts to sub-contract those who were small in localities and so on. Contractors had to ensure that wherever they were, they dealt with local people, and did not bring in their people from other parts of the country. That was what the Department was encouraging as a direction.

On whether to upgrade or build new infrastructure, sometimes a combination of the two was necessary. However, this decision was taken based on the various circumstances. For example, in Mopane, the Department had found a water treatment works that worked for only three months and was almost in a state of collapse. In such a circumstance, the Department, at the advice of the engineers on site, had to demolish the infrastructure and rebuild.

Minister Mchunu said that over the recent months, the DWS had experienced close working cooperation with CoGTA to the point that in May, a presentation was made to facilitate better functionality on the site for municipalities. There was also a joint programme to intervene in dysfunctional municipalities in the treatment of wastewater. The Department hoped to improve on synergising with the CoGTA, but it was not going to wait for CoGTA -- the Department would keep moving ahead and dealing with other problems.

Referring to the supply of water in Giyani, he said that the reason for the completion of the projects at different times was because the contracts were awarded at different times, as per the presentation. In subsequent presentations, the Committee would see the progress made on the projects that were currently in progress. He confirmed that people in these communities were getting water, and what the Department was reporting was on the side of reliability, coverage, and the quality of the water supply.

The Department was looking at robust ways to respond to the issue of vandalism and theft of the infrastructure, including bolstering security measures.

On the question of whether the Department was considering population growth when building the infrastructure, the Minister confirmed that the DWS took this into account.

Dr Sean Phillips, Director-General, DWS, added that there had been efforts to support contractors. The capacitation of contractors was not only about doing things like finding capable contractors, but was also about managing contractors better so that they met the deadlines.

The DWS monitored each project very closely to ensure that the grant conditions were met. Depending on the type of branch, the Department checks the progress on money spent to date before giving additional instalments – it did not give all the money to the municipalities at once. It ensured that the money had been properly spent on what was supposed to be spent before further instalments were given. Alternatively, with other types of grants, the Department even went as far as verifying that the work was done by individual contractors and service providers before the invoices were paid.

One of the other questions was about how the DWS ensured that there was no further corruption regarding the projects being run by the Mopani district municipality for this project. He said that the Department had gone as far as having some of its officials sit on the committees so that there was oversight of the procurement process to ensure that the procurement processes were done regularly.

Concerning the question of water and sanitation infrastructure being deployed as national key points, Dr Phillips indicated that most of the dams were already major key national points. He added that it was very expensive to maintain something as a national key point, as there were very stringent security requirements in terms of both physical staffing, but also in terms of perimeter control, so it was feasible to do that only on major infrastructure, such as large dams. It was not financially viable to declare smaller infrastructures as national key points.

The Department did not provide any water for free. It sold all the raw water provided to either the water boards or major industrial users. The water boards in turn sell the water to municipalities. So, for this project, water would be sold to the municipality, and the municipality must in turn sell the water to the citizens and the municipality. The municipality gets an equitable share allocation, part of which the municipality was supposed to use to provide free basic water, but the municipality must use part of that allocation, as well as the revenue from the sale of water, to pay the water board, which in turn pays the Department. The DSW then uses that money from the sale of water to fund further projects.

Regarding the question about future planning for the growth of villages, there was a requirement in the Water Services Act, for example, that all water services authorities must produce water service development plans. The purpose of those plans was to do medium to long-term planning for water services development to meet projected population growth. The DWS provided extensive support to municipalities in the development of water services development plans.

Mr Mathye added that one of the requirements that made the Department unlock the Water Service Infrastructure Grant (WSIG) was that when the municipalities had made their business plan for funding, it was one of the requirements for them to also indicate this to the Department through the Water Service Development Plan (WSDP). He emphasised that the current demand projections, with the refurbishment of the current treatment works, were going to ensure that the communities that were around those villages, which were originally designed to at least get 25 litres per capita, got access to sufficient water. However, with the Minister's intervention, reticulation, and refurbishment to get that treatment works up to 30 mega litres per day, the additional ten mega litres would make the whole treatment about 40 mega litres a day. This enabled the Department to improve the level of service from 25 litres per person a day, to at least 100-120 litres per person a day. This meant that even if there was an upgrade, and the future demand meant going for full services such as flushing, the infrastructure would be able to cater for such capacity and growth.

On the decentralisation of water treatment works, he said that when things were planned, the Department took into consideration the position of the infrastructure. There were areas where it used one big water treatment plant, but there were also sub-water treatment works. For example, in this case, the Department was upgrading Nandoni to 120 Ml/d, and a further 180 Ml/d to supply most of the closer surrounding communities and municipalities. However, when going further down to Giyani, there was a treatment works where the Department was supplying raw water, so sometimes the DWS upgrades and sometimes there was a need for refurbishment.

On the question of the Implementation Readiness Study (IRS), he said that the current upgrade and the infrastructure had been completed, and the project was now moving towards procurement.

Chairperson's concluding comments

The Chairperson thanked the Department for the engagement and appreciated the work done. He indicated the importance of bolstering the security of the infrastructure to ensure that there was no vandalism. Vandalism cases should be reported, and communities should be encouraged to report such cases, as the infrastructure was meant for them. Where there was already security, the Department should ensure that security personnel did not use excessive force when dealing with criminals – it must be proportionate and in accordance with the law.

The meeting was adjourned.