Vaal River clean-up stand-still as community and criminals prevent work
All work on the Vaal River sewage pollution intervention project has been halted – setting back economic development and at a huge financial and project implementation cost – due to both community resistance and serious criminal acts against service providers.
The work stoppage was implemented after employees of ERWAT – the waste water specialist company spearheading the project – were reportedly hijacked and held hostage by disgruntled community members in Sebokeng recently.
ERWAT MD, Tumelo Gopane, said the safety of ERWAT employees and locally-recruited contractor colleagues working on the Vaal project was of paramount importance.
The work stoppage was still in force at time of publication but major efforts were being made by stakeholders to resolve the matter as soon as this week, if possible.
No-one as far as could be established was injured in the hijack and hostage incident, which seems to have been sparked by demands for employment on the project by local residents.
One of the major effects of community resistance is that all progress made by ERWAT since it started work in December has now been reversed and must again be implemented from scratch at a cost of millions.
News of the work stoppage on a project of major national importance and of huge importance to the economic development of the Vaal region was greeted with great concern by organized business.
“It is really important that we get the truth out there far and wide – that holding up of the rehabilitation of the sewer infrastructure in the Vaal area is directly damaging the economic well-being of all Emfuleni’s residents,” said Rosemary Cloete-Anderson, Water and Sanitation Spokesperson of the Golden Triangle Chamber of Commerce (GTCoC).
Gopane confirmed on inquiry this week that all work on the project had been halted until the safety of ERWAT employees and locally-recruited contractors working on the project could be guaranteed.
“The safety of our ERWAT employees and our contractor colleagues – mostly recruited from the Vaal – is our utmost priority and work has been stopped until appropriate engagement with community elements and other stakeholders has taken place to find a workable solution.
“However, we are working hard to ensure that safe conditions to resume work are restored and that we can address the concerns of the community and indeed work with them to make this crucial project succeed,” Gopane told Mooivaal Media this week.
The Vaal River Intervention Project, as it is officially know, was taken over by ERWAT in December 2019 from the SA Army and Gopane immediately committed to using local labour and skills for the project to the greatest extent possible.
Cloete-Anderson said everybody needed to know that there would be an injection of billions of Rands worth of economic investment and by implication many sustainable jobs once Emfuleni’s whole waste water system is back on track.
“The longer the rehabilitation is held up the longer we have to wait for these big infrastructure developments to materialize and the same goes for jobs,” said Cloete-Anderson.
