Vredefort: Failure at waterworks project

For years, the residents of Vredefort and its township, Mokwallo, have been annoyed by their taps running dry almost daily. The expensive renewal of the Vredefort water purification plant last year brought no relief.
Council’s standing committee on infrastructure was supposed to learn why not last Friday.
“A technical report revealed what we’ve known for a long time: the plant is too small to cater for all existing residents and the many new erven in Mokwallo,” DA councillor Saal de Jager told the Gazette. He serves on the committee. The renewal of the water works last year did not deal with this at all.
According to De Jager, the contractor focused on non-essential repairs, “and many of these were done badly, or not at all”.
At the meeting last Friday, De Jager pointed out around ten mistakes or omissions, including the extra valves required that were not fitted. Only one of the vital water clarifiers was cleaned, and the sand beds in the filters were not renewed. Chemical storage tanks were not refur- bished, and chemicals are stored in the open and subjected to spoilage.
Councillors from other parties were equally outspoken in their criticism.
The consulting engineer, who attended the meeting, stated that the contractor was “in some cases, not responsive to advice or criticism” and left the site before all contracted work had been completed. “Yet he was paid in full,” says De Jager.
The committee arranged another oversight visit to the plant this week to look for more shortcomings and recommend remedies. The refurbishment project has also been referred to MPAC, the council’s standing committee that, among other things, investigates wasteful expenditure and contractual irregularities.
Meanwhile, DA councillors also ask questions about 11 boreholes, sunk at great cost years ago but reportedly not in use.