President Jacob Zuma recently opened the Giyani Water Treatment Works which supply 55 villages in Mopani District Municipality with clean running water.
The water plant was opened as part of President Zuma’s monitoring visit to Giyani area to assess the provision of water following recent community complaints.
The scope of the Giyani Water Treatment Works refurbishment project, implemented by a joint venture of three Tzaneen based construction companies, BMK , MacP and Mopicon includes the construction of additional 16,7 megalitres per day capacity Water Treatment Works.
It also includes the refurbishment of the existing 30 megalitre Water Treatment Works to increase the supply to 36,7 megalitres per day.
Addressing the community during the visit which formed part of the Presidential Siyahlola Monitoring Programme President Zuma admitted that there is a shortage of water in Mopani District, adding that the scale of dependence on boreholes illustrates the gravity of this challenge, even in the hospitals.
“The rural areas in this part of the country are suffering, particularly when you consider that almost half of the boreholes drilled are for one or other reason not working,” said Zuma.
He also noted that water is a serious challenge in many communities and South Africa is growing into a water scarce country, particularly due to broarder changes caused by climate change and global warming.
“It is not this province which faces water shortage challenges, but many others in the country do. Where there is shortage of water, sanitation is also poor and consequently health is affected. In other areas the biggest challenge is ageing infrastructure,” said Zuma. Government has made various interventions to deal with the challenge of water supply in the country. These include expansion of water infrastructure, building of dams and refurbishing and improving old infrastructure. President Zuma said government is also increasing the Municipal Infrastructure Grant to enable the municipalities to increase their scale of service delivery.
The President stressed the need to work together to ensure that the country moves forward and not spend time fixing infrastructure that has been destroyed by unscrupulous people. He urged community members to report all wrongdoing to the police so that they can root out the criminal elements. “It is also important that we strengthen our mechanism of feedback to the communities to ensure that they are up to date with developments and know what is happening. Let us ensure that there are no dripping taps and that any wastage is reported to the authorities without delay,” added Zuma.
