Tsakane- The metro has responded to our media inquiry about the latest delay of the completion of the Xhosa/Zulu reservoir.
Senior media manager for the city Themba Gadebe explains: “The reservoir was not completed as planned on September 28 due to revised engineers’ design which now requires piling.
“In addition, the contractor’s contract expired on September 28 and could not be extended for the second time, and therefore the contractor was relieved of their duties due to the operation of the contractual conditions.
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“A new contractor procured through Development Bank of South Africa is expected to resume construction from December 1.
“When work started, the Ekurhuleni Municipality Water and Sanitation Department had allocated R11-million for the project.
“But in the Sixth Ordinary Mayoral Committee Meeting for 2017, the metro adjusted the R11-million to R48 000 000 for 2017/18.”
In a previous statement, the metro said the project was awarded on April 20, 2017, and the contractor assumed working on site on May 1, 2017.
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“Three weeks later the project was stopped by members of the community who were petrol-bombing the contractor’s vehicles and equipment.
“The reasons for such action were unclear, but there were insinuations of general disgruntlement that some community members wanted a stake in the project beyond general sub-contracting.”
He says to this end, the contractor immediately evacuated from the site on the basis of unfavourable working conditions.
“The project was effectively stopped until September 3, 2017, when the issue was resolved with the said members of the community.
“From the design report, as designed by the engineers, the depth of the soil raft was designed at 1.5m below the slab based on the collapsible soil underlying the proposed area for the reservoir.”
Gadebe said on October 10, 2017, the engineers changed the depth to 3.75m because of the continued existence of the collapsible soils.
And on October 27 the depth was further changed again to 5m.
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“Despite the 5m excavation, collapsible soils were still prevalent on approximately 2/5th of the reservoir footprint.
“On December 17, 2017, the engineers, based on the continuous existence of these collapsible soils, decided to employ the use of piles for that section of the reservoir underlain by the collapsible soils.
“In December 2017, due to the builder’s break, drilling of piles was shifted to January 2018.
“On January 20, 2018, the engineers decided that piling was no longer necessary as per the advice they got from a specialist geotechnical engineer.”
“The original completion date was set for 15 February 15, this year but due to numerous delays as outlined above it was shifted to September 28, 2018.”
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