The portfolio committee on cooperative governance and traditional affairs has called for a speedy resolution to the decade-long water crisis at Makhanda in Eastern Cape.
This follows reports of fresh protests by residents of Makhanda against the Makana local municipality over unreliable water supply.
Committee chairperson Fikile Xasa the municipality presented a plan to alleviate the crisis during the committee’s recent oversight visit to the area.
Xasa said the plan includes the upgrading of the bulk water supply for James Kleynhans water treatment works and the municipality’s two raw water sources.
“This project has been in progress since 2013. This means that Makhanda residents have been without reliable water supply for over a decade, considering the severe drought that also affected the area in 2011,” said Xasa.
He said this is an unreasonably long time for a project that was initially planned for completion within three years.
The municipality attributed the delay to problems relating to the project’s implementing partners, namely Amatola Water and its sub-contractors, as well as the Department of Water and Sanitation.
According to Xasa, shortly after the committee’s oversight visit to the municipality, it engaged with the project’s implementing partners with Water and Sanitation Department Deputy Minister David Mahlobo leading the delegation.
“Mitigating actions were presented including sourcing additional funding to address the project cost overruns, fast-tracking of supply chain management processes, and fast-tracking of work permits.
“It is now nearly six months since these mitigating actions were presented and the Makhanda water crisis remains unresolved,” Xasa said.
He called on the project’s implementing agents to act with urgency and do their best to end the decade-long water crisis.
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