Calls for officials to be prosecuted after municipality fined R160m for water pollution

Water expert Dr Ferrial Adam said issuing fines to municipalities is a good way to start dealing with the water crisis in Gauteng.

This follows a R160 million fine imposed on the Dipaleseng Local Municipality for years of water pollution in the area.

“We have been saying that for a while as well [but] fining the municipality means using taxpayers’ money and that is why we laid criminal charges against the MMC of the City of Johannesburg for pollution from Goudkoppies and Bushkoppies,” she said.

Officials should be held accountable for water pollution

Adams added that officials should be fired for non-performance when it comes to water.

AfriForum Head of Environmental Affairs Lambert de Klerk said officials should be held personally accountable for their shocking negligence over the years.

“AfriForum maintains that the water crisis that is currently being experienced at a national level even justifies the imprisonment of the officials involved,” he added.

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Lambert said the organisation welcomes the R160 million fine imposed on the Dipaleseng Local Municipality on Friday after it was charged with dumping untreated sewage from December 2018 to August 2023. The municipality was accused of contravening the National Environment Act and the National Water Act.

He said the penalty was necessary, not only because Balfour and Greylingstad are the largest towns in the local municipality but also that handling water pollution with the necessary seriousness was crucial, given South Africa’s water scarcity.

“Given this, the heavy sentence that the Balfour Magistrate’s Court imposed on Dipaleseng represents a significant victory. However, in this case, it amounts to double punishment for the taxpayers and residents of the municipality concerned.

“First residents were burdened with unsafe water, and now the very residents are paying the fine indirectly. The prosecution of officials who were responsible for the pollution must be a priority. This will hold officials accountable and guarantee the pursuit of excellence in the interest of residents,” he said.

First phase of Hammanskraal water project completed

Meanwhile, in the City of Tshwane, the Department of Water and Sanitation and the City launched the first phase of the project to deliver clean tap water to Hammanskraal residents.

Deputy Mayor Eugene Modise visited the Klipdrift modular water treatment plant to receive the first module of the first phase that will supply water to Hammanskraal within the next two weeks.

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Former Tshwane mayor Cilliers Brink said the Klipdrift modular water treatment plant will be a remarkable story of government success, the end of years of failure and finger-pointing over unpotable water, and a chance for the City of Tshwane to phase out water tankers.

“In 2004 the Water Master Plan of the City of Tshwane recommended the upgrade of the Rooiwal Waste Water Treatment Plant, the facility where most of the city’s wastewater is treated and released back into the Apies River. Year after year, administration after administration, the project was delayed, and so became more expensive. The neglect of existing infrastructure, in favour of new projects, was a theme of the first decade of the 2000s,” he said.

Brink said too often the refurbishment of old wastewater treatment plants only makes for compelling politics once they have already broken down.

“As a result, Rooiwal continued to deteriorate and polluted the Apies River. Downstream the Temba water purification plant could no longer purify water abstracted from the Apies to a potable standard. That’s when the City of Tshwane and most Hammanskraal residents became dependent on water tankers,” he said.

Brink said the Rooiwal upgrade finally got underway in 2020, but stopped shortly after the contractor abandoned the site and a forensic investigation later found that the tender was rigged which implicated several senior city officials, including the head of supply chain management.

“Rooiwal became another story of failure and finger-pointing between the City of Tshwane and the Department of Water and Sanitation, between the ANC and DA-led coalitions who have governed Tshwane in the intervening years. But there might still be a good ending to this story,” he said.

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