Ward 87 councillor Bridget Steer hosted a meeting with Joburg Water to better understand planned infrastructure upgrades. The discussion with projects and infrastructure manager, Nqobizitha Ndimande and Infrastructure manager, Joseph Mokoala laid out a series of improvements that should, on completion, mitigate the kind of water crisis the city is currently facing.
These are brought on by power outages at Rand Water, not linked to load-shedding, which affects supply, and affects insufficient water storage capacity.
Ndimande said, “We hope to deliver some relief to customers in the shortest time possible, like the inlet to the Crosby reservoir which we hope to finish by July 2023. This will go a long way to mitigating some water supply problems. All infrastructure ages and we are seeing that across the board at the moment.”
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The designs in play now are for infrastructure that will ensure a stable water supply for the next 25-30 years and accommodate population growth in the area, rather than quick fixes to alleviate the current problems alone.
He also spoke at length about trying to move away from their reliance on pumping stations alone by ensuring systems have enough residual pressure that they operate themselves without reliance on electricity.
Stand-by generators are being installed at pump stations to ensure power supply. At Crosby, Ndimande said they are working with City Power to deal with the ‘tricky’ transformer there as part of this fix.
“We are aiming to have at least 36 hours of water stored at all times to allow for any problems that arise to be attended to without interruption of services. At best currently that bugger is 12 hours which is problematic when bigger problems happen and take 3-days to resolve.”
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Joseph Mokoala spoke about concerns with the tender process raised by the community with fears of problems around state capture and corruption. He explained that different experts are used at each level to ensure lines of accountability are intact.
The accounting officer and relevant committees have ensured that due process was followed and specifications going out for tender have been vetted and verified.
The tender evaluation process will scrutinise all bids thoroughly and only approved bids will move forward to the adjudication committee.
The internal audit department will finalise all verification processes and evaluate recommended service providers. Primary and secondary accountability services are used to align bids to supply chain management policies.
A resolution is taken to appoint a contractor and mechanisms are in place to ensure there is no deviation from policy or agreed-upon parameters of the job.
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The following projects have been approved. Engineers were brought on board four years ago, with plans approved two years ago.
- Install a new 1000mm diameter steel pipe to the Crosby reservoir from Rand Water for R80m
This will take 14 months to complete with project designs close to being completed. - Reconfigure the Crosby reservoir and new pump station at a cost of R60m
The reservoir is not being used to its fullest capacity because of the current pipe configuration, as a result, only half of the capacity is in use. This should double storage availability without needing to build a reservoir that pumps to Hursthill.
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- Crosby inlet reconfiguration will take 6 months to complete at a cost of R6m.
Project designs are close to being completed. When the project was implemented in 2016 the pumps did not feature because they were still in good condition.
Now that a review has been completed, a new pump station will be installed to ensure proper capacity.
- New Brixton reservoir, pump station and tower for R180m
This work will augment supply to the network. The tender window for this ended last month and evaluations of submissions are now happening.
It is hoped construction will begin early next year. The land issues related to Brixton Primary School are being resolved and the land acquisition process is nearing completion.
This should see the fastest easing of water issues for clients. This work will take 24 months to complete with tender submissions closed in August.
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