Tshwane yet to appoint new Rooiwal contractor

THERE appears to be no deadline for appointing a new contractor to restart work to capacitate Rooiwal wastewater treatment plant in the City of Tshwane, almost eight months since the municipality fired the previous contractor for abandoning the project.

Executive mayor Cilliers Brink told the Pretoria News that he would not like to set deadlines for the capital project to restart because he didn't want to make empty promises.

“It is very difficult for me to set out the deadline because as a politician I am not in charge of the procurement system. We will certainly put pressure on the city manager and the internal bid committee. But for me to promise that by month end it will restart would be not credible and we risk breaching the trust of people if we make promises that we can't keep,” he said.

Brink's utterance came after he announced during the State of Capital Address last week that at least R2.5 billion would be needed for upgrades during the project's second phase.

He said he met Water and Sanitation Minister Senzo Mcunu and the two agreed to “bring our technical teams together in the next two weeks to discuss possibilities. And if anything is on the table, let's do whatever needs to be done to improve the quality of water in Pretoria North and Hammanskraal”.

For more than a decade, the problem of dirty water supplied to Hammanskraal residents has been attributed to lack of capacity of Rooiwal plant to purify waste water, resulting in the sludge being discharged into the Apies River.

The Apies River, in turn, supplied water to Temba water treatment plant, used for purifying water for Hammanskraal residents.

Asked about the type of work currently taking place at Rooiwal, Brink said: “There are two types of work that need to be done; the first one is capital upgrade, and that is in three phases. Phase three, I think it was 60% done when the contractor walked off site.”

He also pointed out that the project had been riddled with tender irregularities and several officials implicated were facing disciplinary processes.

Brink said: “At present we are still at the stage of appointing consultants and so on to start the work. So, capital work is not being done. The second leg of the work is operational work.”

He said the second phase, including crucial upgrades at the plant, would cost an estimated R2.5bn.

Brink said bulk equipment had been procured and just needed to be installed. “And that will seriously improve the quality of affluence that goes down to Temba.”