Makana gets R300m water crisis funding

● Bulk of cash for expanding water treatment works

The Makana municipality is to get a R300m lifeline from the department of water and sanitation to deal with its water crisis.

The majority of the money – R237m – will go towards expanding the James Kleynhans water treatment works – a project that is expected to take up to 18 months to complete.

It treats 10Ml of water a day and once the expansion is completed, the figure is expected to double.

But to deal with the immediate woes facing the waterscarce Makhanda, the department has given the embattled municipality R22m for ground water exploration.

This is according to water and sanitation national spokesperson Sputnik Ratau.

Makana mayor Mzukisi Mpahlwa confirmed that the R22m was already in its bank account, saying the department had assisted a great deal because the municipality would now be able to drill boreholes to augment the water supply.

“They’ve given us R22m for drought relief and the figure has been broken into two parts.

“R12m is for underground drilling and boreholes and the R10m is for water conservation in the form of fixing water leaks, water demand and educating people about conserving water.

“The money has been signed off and we’re using it as we speak,” Mpahlwa said.

He said in the long-term, the department allocated money towards upgrading the James Kleynhans treatment works, which would up the water treated from 10Ml a day to 20Ml a day once completed.

“The first tranche will be paid in April and then the other payments will follow for phases one up to phase four,” Mpahlwa said.

He said that the dams supplying Makhanda’s western suburbs – Settlers dam and Howieson’s Poort dam – were sitting at 11% and 26%, respectively.

“If it does not rain within the next 20 days, these dams are going to dry up and we’ll have to ration the water because it means we’d only be getting from James Kleynhans.

“One side would have to go without water for two days and so forth but that doesn’t mean there won’t be any water because we’d transport it manually,” Mpahlwa said.

Ratau said the department was working closely with the Makana municipality to find solutions.

He said officials were looking at new sources of water.

“You have a situation there where ground water doesn’t get recharged because it has not rained.

“Infrastructure in Makana is also a problem so we’re also looking at water conservation,” he said.

Ratau said funding for the refurbishment of the James Kleynhans water treatment plant, which amounted to R237m, was provided through the department’s regional bulk grant.

“There is an amount of R35m under what we call the water and sanitation infrastructure grant for certain uses.

“R10m of that is for water conservation usage in Makhanda, Fort Brown as well as Seven Fountains.

“R15m of that is set aside for the refurbishment of the Riebeek East water treatment works and water supply and the other R10m is for the refurbishment of the Alicedale Wa- ter Treatment Works,” he said.

Meanwhile, disaster relief organisation Gift of the Givers set out on a quest on Monday to find underground water to help the municipality deal with the crisis.

Makhanda citizens have had to deal with frequent and extended water outages due to ailing pump, pipe and water treatment infrastructure and a woeful lack of expertise on the part of the municipality.

The relief organisation has also stepped in by delivering thousands of litres of bottled water to desperate citizens.

Gift of the Givers geologist/hydrologist Dr Gideon Groenewald said on Monday the organisation intended to seek out groundwater for the municipality in its quest to find longer-term solutions.

He said it would seek to repair old disused boreholes and only then drill new boreholes if necessary.

It would consult with Rhodes University’s Institute of Water Research and dive deep into its research literature to track down existing but disused boreholes around the city.

“Cleaning up old boreholes is considerably cheaper than drilling new ones so that is where we will start.”

Either way, he said, it was confident that it would strike water soon.

‘The money has been signed off and we’re using it as we speak’

Mzukisi Mpahlwa

MAKANA MAYOR