SIU raids water board offices on graft claim

THE Department of Human Settlements, Sanitation and Water Affairs said it was ready to pay contractors outstanding fees to get the stalled Giyani bulk water infrastructure project completed within the next seven months.

Department Director-General Mbulelo Tshangana said the pipeline was 95% complete.

“I think we should be done with everything by June,” Tshangana said after a briefing by the department to Parliament’s committee on human settlements, water and sanitation.

The project, meant to lay water to 55 villages, ground to a halt last year when Khato Civils walked off the job, claiming that the department had failed to pay it R300 million.

Tshangana conceded that the Special Investigating Unit’s (SIU) probe into the Lepelle Water Board, the implementing agency for the project, complicated the matter. The SIU raided the water board headquarters in Polokwane on Monday.

This came after complaints that it had refused to supply the unit with documents relevant to its investigation into what Finance Minister Tito Mboweni described as a “cesspool of corruption” relating to the project, which at a price tag of R3.5 billion, has now exceeded its initial costing five times, while villagers continue to wait for water.