The City of Tshwane, the epicentre of the deadly cholera outbreak in the country, has allocated hundreds of millions of rand to upgrade the Rooiwal water treatment plant.
Finance MMC Peter Sutton, tabling his R46.9bn budget for the 2023/24 financial year in the council chambers on Wednesday said the quality of water in the area is a “stain upon the conscience of this city.
“It is for this reason that we are allocating the biggest budgetary allocation possible towards the refurbishment of Rooiwal. An amount of R450m will be allocated over the next three years, split into R150m annual allocations,” Sutton said.
The Gauteng department of health reported Sunday that 229 patients had been seen by the Jubilee District Hospital, that there had been 48 confirmed cases of cholera and 23 deaths.
Hammanskraal residents have protested and demanded clean water for years, and in 2019 the SA Human Rights Commission deemed the water there unfit for human consumption.
The water crisis in Hammanskraal has continued since 2005, when the Rooiwal water treatment plant started malfunctioning because it received volumes greater than it could handle. The plant has been discharging untreated or partially treated sewage into the Apies River, which flows into the Leeukraal Dam — the main source of water for the town of about 20,000 people.
The tender to upgrade the Rooiwaal plant was awarded to corruption-accused ANC benefactor Edwin Sodi, whose consortium did half the work and was allegedly paid R292m, the full value of the contract, according to Sowetan newspaper. The contract was cancelled in August 2022 for alleged poor performance, and a forensic report subsequently declared the contract irregular.
Sutton said: “In this next financial year, the first R150m allocation will be prioritised towards finalising the phase 1 upgrades of the project. We will now be relentless in ensuring that we address the long-standing issues at Rooiwal.”
The Tshwane metro, with the cities of Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni, is run by a coalition because the 2021 municipal elections did not produce a clear winner.
Tshwane has a population of 3.6-million and contributes R614bn to national GDP. It is dogged by service delivery challenges including housing, roads, unemployment and the energy crisis.
The finance MMC said: “We will have a capital investment of R2.35bn over the 2023/24 financial year. The focus of the capital investment will be to address the inequality in our township areas and to ensure revenue enhancement.”
The municipality has more than 270 informal settlements in need of “formalisation, infrastructure backlogs calculating to billions, and operational deficiencies”.
Of the total budget, R2.4bn was set aside for capital infrastructure investment.
Sutton said the city plans to raise revenue through the sale of electricity, the revenue from which is projected at R16.6bn for the next financial year, while water revenue is projected at R5.7bn. “Bulk water purchases will make up R3.6bn of the outflow, and repairs and maintenance has been budgeted at R135m,” he said.
Income from sanitation is projected at R1.7bn for the next financial year; waste collection R1.8bn; fines and penalties R292m; and rental income from facilities R203m. Property rates revenue is projected at R9.6bn.
Regarding tariff increases, Sutton said: “The city is proposing a tariff increase across all core services: property rates at 5%, electricity at 15.1%, water and sanitation at 9.2%, and refuse removal at 6%. This will be an average increase of 8.9%.”
He said the electricity and water increases are directly linked to tariffs approved by the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) and Rand Water, respectively.
Sutton announced there would be no salary increase for Tshwane employees, saying: “This is not a decision taken lightly and definitely not intended to punish our workforce. We have very hardworking officials in this city who are worth every cent they earn.
“But the volatile financial position we are in now, and the responsibility towards preserving jobs and ensuring monthly salary payments with a cash shortfall of around R1bn per month, this difficult decision had to be taken. We need to avoid at all costs a situation where staff do not get paid at all and this is part of the motivation of no salary increases.”
He said that the metro could change this by winning back the trust of the public through “increased service delivery, increasing our revenue base, and improving our cash collection and financial health. If we do not, the situation will get worse.”
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.