R18 billion injection to address Polokwane’s water challenges
Lepelle Northern Water plans to spend an estimated R18 billion on the refurbishment and upgrading of water infrastructure that will enhance water provision to the city.
POLOKWANE – Lepelle Northern Water (LNW) is ready to inject billions of rand into projects to address the city’s water challenges within the foreseeable future.
During a media briefing at LNW’s head office in the city on Monday, the chairperson of the board, Dr Nndweleni Mphephu and CEO, Dr Cornelius Ruiters provided details of LNW’s plans to spend an estimated R18b on the refurbishment and upgrading of water infrastructure that will enhance water provision to the city and other consumers in the province.
“Recently, LNW signed a memorandum of agreement with the Infrastructure Fund, a unit of the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), towards funding, financing and implementation of phase 1 of the Olifantspoort/Ebenezer Upgrade Project to the tune of R4.6bn. The overall cost of the project is estimated at R18bn,” Mphephu announced, explaining that phase 1 will entail the refurbishment and upgrade of works, including optimisation of the treatment plants at both the Olifantspoort and Ebenezer water schemes.
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Phase 1 has already started, is planned for completion by August 2026 and will address the water challenges of the Capricorn District Municipality and Polokwane Municipality, according to Mphephu.
Ruiters assured that the work will proceed without adversely affecting service delivery and mentioned that the demand for water increases all the time due to population growth and that this also has to be taken into account.
Mphephu said the LNW board has stabilised the organisation’s finances and improved from a deficit of R44m to a surplus of R94m for the last financial year because of, among others, clean governance and introduction of cost containment measures.
“We have strengthened our debt collection efforts and are continuously engaging water services authorities and customers on outstanding debts. The operational costs of the organisation are extremely high and service delivery to our community is dealt a severe blow when bills are not paid on time,” the chairperson explained.
LNW received an unqualified audit opinion for the financial year ending June 30, 2022, which was the fourth consecutive year.
“There has been improvement in terms of reducing the materiality and significance of findings to two from seven, an improvement from a previous 11 incidents of irregular expenditure to only one in 2022. We are working arduously towards achieving a clean audit in future,” Mphephu said.
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He added that, as far as other projects are concerned, the R143m Moutse Drought Relief Intervention Project in Sekhukhune is at 98% completion. The outstanding work is infrastructure-related and pertains to electricity connections to boreholes in seven villages and two remaining package plants.
“The biggest milestone is the practical completion of Nandoni-Nsami Pipeline Project which enabled water from Nandoni Dam to reach Nsami Dam on April 5. The final completion is planned for the end of June 2023. The 40km pipeline construction is complete and what remains are river crossings, the installation of fittings at the pump station and tie-in with the main line,” Mphephu said.
According to Mphephu, the Giyani Water Services Intervention Project is at an overall progress of 61%, and the final completion date is end of December 2023 – 23 reservoirs have thus far been connected and reticulation has already commenced. A multi-stakeholder task forum is in place to continuously address issues raised by stakeholders. LNW is also engaged in the reconfiguration process that is expected to see LNW taking over part of the functions of Magalies Water in Limpopo. This will expand the footprint of LNW to provide bulk water service to the entire province.
“We have strengthened our governance structure through the appointment of the CEO, CFO and general manager: engineering services. This has aided the effective and smooth running of the organisation. Our CEO, Dr Cornelius Ruiters is a professional engineer and comes in handy since our organisation is infrastructure heavy. His expertise, knowledge and leadership are evident in the significant strides that have thus far been made in the running of operations and project implementation,” Mphephu said.
“We are excited about the path of envisioned growth that the board, executive management and workforce of LNW have jointly embarked on. We are headstrong about seeing LNW back on track and, in conjunction with our stakeholders, changing the landscape in Limpopo for the better. We remain committed to the core business values which are reliability, accountability and collaboration. These are the guiding principles in the day-to-day operations and in ensuring that our mandate of delivering bulk water services to our customers is achieved,” Mphephu said in conclusion.
