On the 19th March 2021 a very important meeting on Rustenburg’s bulk water supply crisis took place at Bospoort water treatment plant. In attendance were the following stakeholders:
Rustenburg Local Municipality which was represented by the Executive Mayor Clr Mpho Khunou, MMC Mhlungu, Clr Snyders, Clr Du Plessis, Municipal Manager, Director DTIS, Acting Unit Manager- Water Supply and other officials.
Magalies Water represented by the Board Chairperson Ms Pinky Motoko the Chief Executive, General Manager and other officials.
Rand Water was represented by Senior Customer Executives. The Rustenburg Water Services Trust was represented by the Board Chairperson Mr Vinesh Dilsook and the CEO. Also in attendance was MP Hon Cheryl Phillips.
The purpose of the meeting was to focus on the current bulk water challenges in Rustenburg which have severely affected supply to large sections of the municipality. The meeting also dealt with water quality concerns by the municipality on behalf of residents.
The following is a brief overview of reports presented by the various water boards on the current bulk water supply challenges.
This entity supplies water to Rustenburg through two systems. The first is through the Vaal river water network which supplies via the Barnardsvlei reservoir and two pipelines commonly known as P1 and P2. About 140 mega litres are pumped to Rustenburg through this system although only about 40 mega litres reaches the city for domestic/ household consumption. ‘’Approximately 100 mega litres of this water is actually utilised by the mines in terms of direct agreements with Rand Water’’.
In terms of an existing agreement with Magalies Water, Rand Water buys on average 70 mega litres of water from the entity to supply to Rustenburg. This water finds its way to Rustenburg through the Boosport reservoir. The water from this reservoir feeds into the following reservoirs; townlands and industry. According to Magalies Water which produces the water supplied to Rand Water and ultimately to Rustenburg a number of mines including Impala are fed from the Boosport reservoir. In terms of the 70 mega litres mentioned above about 6 mega litres is supplied to the Royal Bafokeng areas. The remainder which is approximately 64 mega litres is shared between the mines and the household consumers of Rustenburg. What was not disclosed in the meeting was the exact breakdown of how the 64 mega litres is shared between the mines and the municipality for domestic consumption.
A major area of contention in the meeting was on the fact that Bospoort reservoir always records very low levels irrespective of restrictions imposed to raise it. This appears to be the main reason why residents in this supply line are frequently without water The areas which are regularly affected include the greater Boitekong ,Sunrise Park, Rustenburg North , Ramochana Seraleng, Sondela, Zinniaville , Karlienpark, Tlhabane , Tlhabane West and Geelhout Park. A thorough investigation is to be urgently undertaken to establish why the Bospoort reservoir is never full to capacity irrespective of the length of time the restrictions are imposed
In essence their report indicated that the existing agreement with Magalies Water provides for the supply of 55 mega litres but due to the demand in Rustenburg they supply on average the 70 mega litres referred to above. In addition they supply approximately 9 mega litres to areas such as Lethabong, Monakato, Bethanie, and Makolokwe. These residents are also at the brunt of supply interruptions as demand far exceeds supply. Magalies further reported that they have installed a new pump at their Vaalkop plant to improve capacity although they expressed serious concern about the Vaalkop Plant being operated beyond its design capacity which in itself poses a huge risk.
In order to meet the forever growing water demand in Rustenburg, Magalies had long ago initiated the Pilanesburg water scheme which is to supply an additional 70 mega litres. This scheme has been implemented up to Mafenya in Rustenburg and should have been completed as far back as 2016. Magalies Water revealed that they need close to 1 billion rand to complete this project and they anticipate that once funding is secured it could take up to two years to complete the project. Confirmation of the funding is still awaited from the Department of Water and Sanitation. This matter will be once more elevated to National government.
According to Magalies the water supplied to Rustenburg is compliant with the applicable quality standards. This matter was vehemently disputed by the Councillors of the municipality who contended that large parts of Rustenburg experience serious issues of water quality. The municipality has appointed experts to regularly monitor the water quality supplied.
The entity runs the Bospoort Water treatment plant which currently has capacity to produce 12 mega litres. This water is supplied to Rustenburg through the Industry reservoirs. In terms of a study conducted by the monitoring and evaluation unit of the municipality the Boosport plant regularly reports very frequent power supply interruptions. For example on the 16th March 2021 the plant record more than 50 electricity supply interruptions. The power interruptions are so frequent that water supply to Rustenburg is severely affected most of the time. It is for this reason that at the end of 2019 the municipality commissioned an old Rand water line from the Rustenburg Civic centre to boost supply to Industry reservoir. This however does not result in addition water overall to Rustenburg but rather a form of supply and demand management to various parts of the city. The Rustenburg Water services trust has made several attempts to secure a dedicated line to the Bospoort plant from Eskom without much success. This line will eliminate the frequent power supply interruptions to the plant which have drastically affected water delivery to residents. This matter will be elevated once more to the Provincial management of Eskom. The Trust is also currently busy to upgrade the Bospoort plant in order to double supply from 12 to 24 mega litres. This project will take about two years to complete.
Rand Water supplies 140 mega litres from the Barnardvlei reservoir about 100 mega litres is supplied to the mines. Rand Water supplies water to Rustenburg bought from Magalies Water, although Magalies Water indicates that it supplies 70 mega litres through this arrangement not all this water is ultimately delivered to households in Rustenburg, we estimate about only about half of the 64 mega litres (Subtracting Bafokeng Supply) reaches domestic consumers.
Magalies Water supplies an additional 9 mega litres as explained above.
Rustenburg Water Services Trust is meant to supply 12 mega litres but due to frequent electricity interruptions we estimate that only we only receive at best 6 mega litres per day.
Total domestic demand for Rustenburg is estimated at about 135 mega litres but we only receive about 85 mega litres resulting in daily shortfall of about 50 mega litres.
The meeting agreed on the following:
The task team is expected to give a preliminary report on the 1st April 2021.
Other interventions being done by the municipality on water supply challenges include the following:
It is expected that the project will alleviate supply problems especially to high lying areas of Tlhabane West.
1.6 Conclusion
We will give regular updates on all of this interventions.
The leadership collective of the RLM, has changed tact to focus on providing financial and resource support to the Technical and Infrastructure Directorate (DTIS) which is the nerve of service delivery of within the City’s administration. The Directorate has been prioritised to ensure that necessary support is given to the units (water, sanitation and electricity) to address the existing backlog of service delivery complaints, which were due to both financial and resource limitations. The Sanitation team will be focusing on sanitation related problems in Lethabong, for the remainder of this month as well as carrying out maintenance on the sanitation infrastructure.
The RLM’s Community Development Directorate, has upped its ante in respect of clearing of all illegal dumping areas in the various residential areas. This month focus will be directed to numerous areas including – Zinniaville, Geelhout Park, Yizo-Yizo, Boitekong ext 13 and ext 23, Seraleng, Freedom Park, Bokamoso, Karlienpark, Marikana and Tlhabane. Further to that the Directorate will be keeping with one of the City’s strategic priority of ensuring that the environment is kept clean and safe for all, by cleaning public areas and sports facilities such as Tlhabane Stadium, Olympia Park, Zinniaville Sports Ground, and Boitekong Stadium among other areas which will receive attention.
The Municipality is aware of the sensitivities around graveyards as well as the significance such places carry for the residents of Rustenburg, who are from varied religious backgrounds.
To that effect, the RLM will also be attending to the cleaning of cemeteries such as Tlhabane, Pioneer, Donkerhoek and Reitvlei.
The City Council has approved a sizeable amount of an additional allocation to deal with the road network rehabilitation and maintenance. Rustenburg continues to experience high traffic volumes for both commercial and non-commercial usage. As such, the City’s road network requires constant maintenance to meet the demand of freight in particular which plays a crucial role in the economic growth of the City, through the movement of goods and creating access to a myriad of strategic services.
The Roads and Transport Directorate will be taking its pot-hole patching and maintenance by focusing in Rustenburg CBD, Tlhabane, Rustenburg East, Zinniaville, Phatsima, Mafenya, Chaneng, Robega, Water Fall East for this month. The road rehabilitation/maintenance project will focus on the following:
Speaking on the side-lines of the weekly Special Mayoral Committee meetings this morning, Executive Mayor Mpho Khunou said, it was important that the concerns of residents are at all material times taken into account “we have recently passed conservative adjustment budget which by all intents and purposes seeks to address core service delivery challenges. We are aware of the water situation, the condition of our City’s roads and we will be doubling our efforts to ensure that residents see an improvement. It will take time for the City to permanently address these and our residents should be seeing a change soon as out plans start to take shape. We however we remain optimistic that the additional allocation to address water challenges will bear fruits in the middle of the next financial year, as this is an on-going concern to us which required attention and intervention” Mayor Khunou said.
Mayor Khunou said, residents need to appreciate that the RLM understands their frustrations well, and it is for that reason that the Municipality has been interacting with stakeholders in finding a lasting solution. To date the RLM has informed the North West Premier, MEC for local government in addition to initiating the discussions with the ministry for water and sanitation about the difficult position the City finds itself in. There are on-going engagements to find a collective solution, to the current water challenge.
Work is currently underway to address increasing the Rustenburg’s water network capacity to deal with intermittent water cuts, low pressured water to high-lying residents as well as to ensure that reservoirs will have the minimum spare capacity to enable flow and reduce scheduled water interruptions largely to high water demand which currently far exceeds the supply. The Executive Mayor has recently announced that an envisaged upgrade of the Bospoort Water Treatment Works from 12 to 24 mega litres which will ensure that residents in Greater Boitekong, Zinniaville, Tlhabane and Tlhabane West among other areas experience an improved access to water with reduced water interruptions.
Regular updates will be communicated in the coming months, to detail the work to be done in other areas, in line with the service delivery plan and also report back on the on completed service delivery backlogs.
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The Rustenburg Local Municipality’s Public Safety Directorate, kick-started its weekend with the continuation of the Safe and Clean City campaign, which is in-line with one of Rustenburg’s key priorities – Maintain clean, green, safe and healthy municipal environment for all residents. Other strategic stakeholders to the campaign included the Hawkers Forum and the taxi association both operating from the City’s transport hub. Other Directorates included the Local Economic Development which is key to facilitating small-to-large scale economic activities in the City including the informal business sector, Community Development central to the campaign, in ensuring that Rustenburg is kept clean for all and the Roads and Transport, which has a solid working relation with the taxi industry as the lead in road infrastructure maintenance.
The campaign focused on the following key areas:
The City’s leadership remains concerned about the number of people who have expressed desire to trade in Rustenburg’s CBD but have disregarded the applicable by-laws governing informal trading. Member of the Mayoral Committee on Public Safety Councillor Victoria Makhaula, said residents and in particular informal trader need to understand that by-laws are approved by Council as a measure of ensuring law and order “I want to urge our residents to be aware that Council continues to support the informal traders, however it is not correct for people to come into Rustenburg and put up stalls everywhere, without the necessary consent. It is further unfair to those who have acquired their permits legally and who continue to comply. As such, our appeal is that our residents visit our offices, to get the necessary paperwork to be able to trade freely” said Makhaula.
Previously the RLM has received complaints from pedestrians and businesses alike about informal traders who put on busy side-walks and further congesting pedestrian traffic and making it difficult for shoppers to move in-between shops with ease particularly at month-end. The Public Safety officers, have issued section 56 notices, to the informal traders who were found in Rustenburg East, between Friday and Saturday with imminent fines should they be found to be in contravention of the applicable by-laws in future.
Residents are encouraged to at all material times, comply with the alert level regulations, which require compliance to gathering and enforcement of a curfew which is intended to control movement of persons between midnight and 04:00 am. Any person found to be in contravention of the regulations, may be liable to pay a fine and or face imprisonment.
End.