Massive water project benefits 55 villages

Lepelle Northern Water (LNW) recently enhanced the lives of residents from 55 communities in Mopani District when a water and sanitation project that injected R2,3 billion into the economy, was completed.
Chief Executive Officer of LNW, Phineas Legodi said in a media release that the work was shared between 38 companies, of which some were from locally based entities. The project has also empowered local communities through training of 29 interns and 165 borehole operators and has created about
1 000 job opportunities.
“The project received the blessings of President Zuma, Premier Stan Mathabatha and the Minister of Water and Sanitation, Nomvula Mokonyane. During his State of the Nation Address President Zuma applauded the winning team of LNW for their efforts of ensuring that the people of Limpopo are emancipated from water and sanitation challenges that has been troubling them for years,” Legodi said.
“Ours is to ensure that the dignity of the community is restored. The Giyani community deserve every right to get water and sanitation therefore you can’t deny them rights. Gone are the days when people were subjected to distress while we can’t find solutions,” Legodi stated and added that the limited dilapidated infrastructure that was there was more than 30 years old and has long outlived its lifespan.
According to Legodi, some of the project’s milestones include access to quality water by 55 villages, completion of the Nsami Waste Water Scheme, providing of 154 boreholes and the installation of a borehole scheme at Nkhensani/Nsami Hospital where people were dying because of lack of water and newborn babies were discharged without bathing and some surgical operations could not be performed.
“The water and sanitation status in and around Giyani area has improved significantly. The impact on the intervention led to the improvement on bulk water supply, access to water, effluent discharge from waste water treatment works and operation and maintenance of the schemes and related infrastructure,” Legodi reported.
According to Legodi, the developments also caught the attention of Mopani Executive Mayor Nkakareng Rakgoale who was quoted to have said: “The people of Mopani welcome the developments and are happy. For more than 60 years they were subjected to old pipes and now the new pipes have been installed. This will also assist the new malls in Mopani and improve our infrastructure. Our wish is that the Department of Water and Sanitation gets more budget to speed up projects”.

Story: BARRY VILJOEN
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