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Water and Sanitation Deputy Minister, Judith Tshabalala visited Rustenburg Local Municipality in North West Province on Tuesday, 30 May 2023. The purpose of the Ministerial oversight visit was to assess the state, challenges and conceive possible solutions to the water and sanitation challenges in the Local Municipality. 

The Deputy Minister’s visit to the area was prompted by the fact that Rustenburg Local Municipality is experiencing drinking water supply challenges, which have resulted in intermittent supply and rationing of water supply as well as the failure of sewer network infrastructure causing the overflow of manholes. The latter is likely to cause pollution of water resources.

During the working visit, Deputy Minister met with various representatives from organisations such as Bojanala District Municipality, Magalies Water, Royal Bafokeng, Zinniaville Ratepayers Association, Rand Water, Glencore, Elands Mines, Anglo Platinum, Sibanye Water and Business Chamber. 

Subsequent to the engagement, Deputy Minister Tshabalala visited Zanniaville, Zeindeling and Boom, these are some of the residential areas under Rustenburg Local Municipalities that are badly affected by manholes overflowing of manholes and blockages of sewers. 

Deputy Minister assured residents of these areas that their challenges will be resolved, and also warned residents to refrain from throwing foreign objects into manholes. 

“We are going to monitor the situation here very closely. We want to see dust and mud to prove that we are working. I am told that the contractor has been appointed in order to fix all these blockages and spillages and they will be commencing on 01 June 2023, we will come back soon, our people deserve better,” Deputy Minister Tshabalala said. 

Deputy Minister Tshabalala also slammed the bureaucratic processes that delay procurement progress and in turn deny services to the people. She emphasised that this needs to be eradicated.   

Rustenburg Local Municipality is also encountering some water supply shortages in different areas due to various causes like load shedding affecting the Magalies water supply and Bospoort Water Treatment Works (WTA) supply areas, as well as breakdowns due to pipe bursts. The capacity of Bospoort Water Treatment Works is 12 Ml/d. 

In an effort to address the issue of water supply that gets interrupted due to load shedding, Rustenburg Local Municipality wrote a letter to Eskom, requesting to be exempted from load shedding at the Bospoort WTW. The Municipality is a going out on tender for a backup generator as a short-term measure. The long-term solution is to have a dedicated electrical line in place only to service the Bospoort WTW, separate to the line that supplies electricity to the residential area.

Bospoort plant is currently in the process of upgrade from 12 Ml/d to 24 Ml/d. The upgrade project has been put on hold due to contractual disputes and pending court cases with the contractor, this is impacting negatively on the supply of potable water to the area. 

Some of the water supply challenges in the Rustenburg Local Municipality are attributed to the following factors: only 4-8% of low-income households are paying for their water use, old asbestos cement pipes are bursting frequently, high levels of non-revenue water and many of the pump stations are not operational. 

Chadwick Lobakeng, the Department of Water and Sanitation’s North West Provincial Head highlighted that the Rustenburg Local Municipality should look into implementing water restrictions in order to manage the current demand and supply. 

“Mining companies utilise a huge amount of water for their daily operations, hence we requested them to use less water and also replace some of their quotas with water from treated effluent,” Mr Lobakeng stated. 

Furthermore, Lobakeng indicated that electricity supply is not adequate and high lying areas do not have water due to low pressure in the system, and this is caused by high demands during summer.  

Deputy Minister Tshabalala concluded by emphasising that cholera outbreak should serve as an eye-opener and this was evident that water is life therefore should be managed with care. 

Issued by the Department of Water & Sanitation