The point where the 10s of thousand litres of raw sewage flowing out of the back of the Rooiwal Water Care Works flows into and consume the Aapies river in Hammanskraal, 8 June 2023. Picture: Neil McCartney / The Citizen
President Cyril Ramaphosa was surrounded by media as he was shown around the visibly aged infrastructure of the Rooiwal water care plant.
The stench was exactly what you’d expect from a sewage treatment plant but the plant looked to at least be in a reasonable working order.
The media followed his every move but he went nowhere near the back of the plant.
As Cyril’s vast cavalcade of black BMWs and Mercedes vans filled with a near platoon of Special Task Force operatives vanished leaving only dust behind in their wake. Theuns Vogel, a local farmer approached us.
He took us to the empty solar beds that he said should be filled to the brim with the drying sludge that has been processed through the plant that eventually gets turned into agricultural manure. But it was near empty.
The first question that arose was: “Where is all the sludge that would have been scattered on this very large area to dry?”
He soon showed us where it all goes.
The empty solar drying beds near the Rooiwal Water Care Works in Hammanskraal, 8 June 2023. These beds used to be full of drying sludge, but as the plant is not processing as much volume they are empty. Picture: Neil McCartney / The Citizen
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