Eight-year overdue Limpopo water project will be done before elections, promises premier

In what many believe is another ANC electioneering tactic to garner support ahead of the 2024 general elections, Limpopo Premier Chupu Stan Mathabatha has promised villagers of Giyani they will have water before the end of the year.

Dubbed the Presidential Giyani Bulk Water Supply, the project has been allegedly used by many ANC leaders as a tool to garner support from residents in an attempt to win elections.

R4.5 billion

In his state of the province address in February, Mathabatha, who is also Limpopo ANC chair, said Water and Sanitation Minister Senzo Mchunu had told him the people of Giyani will finally have clean running water.

Mathabatha praised the Mopani district municipality, where the R4.5 billion project is being implemented. “The district has just completed the appointment of contractors to start with the work of laying infrastructure for reticulation and I’m more than happy about that because the people of Giyani have been waiting for water for a long time.”

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Phase one: 24 villages set to receive water

Last year, Mchunu injected R1.3 billion in Mopani for the reticulation of the project. The project, which begun in January, is set to bring water to the first 24 villages during phase one and the remaining 31 during phase two.

Mchunu said reticulation was important as it will help bring water to the 55 villages after the completion of the Nandoni pipeline.

Mopani spokesperson Odas Ngobeni said the reticulation project was expected to be complete by 30 June next year.

Corruption – ‘a huge embarrassment’

In October last year, when angry Giyani residents barricaded the streets, demanding for the project to be completed, Mchunu said corruption was the major contributor to the prolonged delays.

He said the corruption had become a huge embarrassment, not only to his department, but to the government and the citizens.

He applauded the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) in its investigations. Spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago told The Citizen yesterday, the SIU had completed its investigations.

“We are now wrapping up statements about our findings, which would then be forwarded to President Cyril Ramaphosa for action,” he said.

The Giyani Bulk Water project started in August 2014, and was expected to be completed by August 2017. It started with a budget of R502 million but later ballooned to R2.2 billion, R2.8 billion, R3.5 billion and now stands at a staggering R4.5 billion.

Former president Jacob Zuma visited Mopani in 2014, and ordered then water and sanitation minister Nomvula Mokonyane to restore water in the region.

This after Mopani was declared a disaster area in 1998, after two main water sources, Middle Letaba and Nsami Dams, dried up.

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Giyani water project failed under three ministers

Through the Lepelle Northern Water Board, a state-owned water utility responsible for the provision of bulk water in most Limpopo municipalities, engineering company LTE was appointed.

LTE outsourced construction to Khato Civil, which later abandoned the project amid contractual squabbles with the department.

Three ministers – Mokonyane, Gugile Nkwinti and Lindiwe Sisulu – have overseen the project and failed dismally.

The company that is now overseeing the project is Construction North and is about to finish work at Nandoni. But ordinary citizens, such as a leader of the Giyani Business Forum, Patrick Ritshuri, believe this is ANC electioneering. The department has not responded to a request for a comment at the time of going to print.

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