City of Tshwane taking steps to prevent water supply sabotage

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JEREMY MAGGS: Private operators of water tankers in South Africa are reportedly taking advantage of the government’s failure to maintain water infrastructure. According to a report from the Sunday Times, these operators are even sabotaging municipal water supply to boost their business. The situation worsening with the recent cholera outbreak in Hammanskraal, on the outskirts of Pretoria. The tank operators are denying any responsibility, but at least three deaths in Hammanskraal have reportedly been linked to drinking water from those tankers. Joining us now is Selby Bokaba, who speaks for the metro. So first up, the standoff with private tankers, is it under control?

SELBY BOKABA: We do have it under control. We have a contract with the service providers and there are terms to which they have to adhere to, and we are comfortable that the arrangement that we have with them is complied with.

JEREMY MAGGS: What measures then is the City of Tshwane taking to address the increasing expenditure on these tankers into Hammanskraal and other informal areas? Because that is also a problem.

SELBY BOKABA: It is a problem, and the problem was not created by us. When we had the outbreak of Covid-19, national government said we need to provide water tankers to informal settlements. Actually, it was a package of rudimentary services, so we started that in March 2020, but national government was assisting. Then suddenly national government no longer came to the party, it became our baby and some of these costs have escalated or skyrocketed, as you are aware.

We started with about R8 million, we are now sitting with over R400 million expenditure that we have incurred. Our institution now has a recent agreement with the Department of Water and Sanitation to fix the Rooiwal wastewater treatment and this project is going to take about four years.

But there are some short-term solutions, which is going to help to alleviate some of the problems that we are experiencing with the provision of water to the people of Hammanskraal.

That agreement was reached yesterday. There was an announcement between the mayor and the Minister of Water and Sanitation (Senzo Mchunu). Ultimately, when the water situation of Hammanskraal is resolved and people are able to get clean safe water from their taps, it would mean that the issue of water tankers will be a thing of the past.

JEREMY MAGGS: But you do have a problem, allegations of the tanker operators sabotaging the municipal water supply and that would possibly lead to a spread of cholera, particularly in Hammanskraal. What steps then are being taken to investigate their alleged involvement?

SELBY BOKABA: Yes, what we’ve been doing all along is that we’ve been having warm bodies [sic] that go with a checklist to make sure that water is drawn from sources that are regulated. For instance, the fire hydrants or the borehole that belong to the City of Tshwane. That has been done. Two, we also have warm bodies that make sure that these water tankers are disinfected. So we check for cleanliness, we check where they draw the water.

What we have done post the outbreak of cholera was to also make sure that after water has been drawn, we put a warm body on each of these trucks to make sure that nothing happens en route between drawing water and going to deliver water to the communities. So there is somebody who makes sure that nothing happens in between. So we are taking these measures strongly and seriously and from our side, we make sure that we dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s.

JEREMY MAGGS: Can you state categorically that water on these tankers that is being delivered is safe and clean for use?

SELBY BOKABA: Yes. We’ve got three sources of water, we’ve got water from our hydrants, that comes from Magalies Water, that comes from Rand Water, that comes from our borehole. The primary source of that water is Rand Water and the one from our borehole. This water, I can say without any fear of contradiction that this water is safe for drinking. We have also conducted tests on water that is carried by these water tankers for our communities. They have been tested and those results came out negative for cholera.

Even the fire hydrants from where these tankers draw water have been tested and they have not tested positive for cholera. So there we are quite comfortable and that is why we are saying it’s important that we determine the actual source of contamination because we have done tests on the entire water distribution network and those tests have come out negative. So we are awaiting test results from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, NICD, and we hope that they will be able to pinpoint us to the actual source of contamination.

JEREMY MAGGS: Selby Bokaba, thank you very much.

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