State-owned Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority (TCTA) has achieved its thirtieth consecutive unqualified audit opinion in the financial year ended March 31, and the water infrastructure entity is targeting further mandates by shareholder, the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS).

The DWS-led parastatal posted project revenue of some R5.78-billion – the bulk of which were water tariffs – an increase on the R5-billion achieved in the prior financial year.

Presenting the highlights of the 2015/16 financial year on Friday, acting CEO Leonard Radzuma said the entity would seek out further projects to add to its growing, successful portfolio.

“We are ready and hungry to implement more projects,” he averred, unpacking the success to date of its projects since inception.

   “TCTA has managed to keep it clean over the past 30 years,” TCTA CFO Halima Nazeer commented, also noting the increasing effort to secure more mandates from the DWS.

TCTA project management and implementation executive manager Johann Claassens commended the progress made on the company’s projects during the year, including that of the game-changing acid mine drainage (AMD) project, which had become the water entity’s “most radical” project yet.

The urgency required in developing an initial short-term solution for the rising toxic AMD facing Gauteng had challenged TCTA, forcing the company to become more innovative and faster, providing a “steep learning curve”.

The AMD project was aimed at initiating an initial short-term intervention to ensure that untreated AMD did not impact on ground or surface water resources, by installing pumps to extract water from the Western, Central and Eastern basins, in the Witwatersrand goldfields and neutralising and removing heavy metals before discharge into the river system.

In the Western basin, TCTA continued to upgrade the existing plant to correct capacity, in the Central basin, an 84 Mℓ/d plant was built, with treatment commencing in 2014, while the 108 Mℓ/d plant in the Eastern basin that was constructed became operational in May 2016.

“To date, everything planned and everything implemented . . . is mostly going according to plan,” Claassens said, noting that the short-term interventions have prevented the uncontrolled decant of toxic AMD into the broader environment, including the natural river system.

However, the challenge was not yet over, he warned, as a more long-term, sustainable solution to the AMD challenge was required. A key focus for the year ahead for TCTA would be the AMD long-term solution.

In addition, TCTA will narrow focus on enhancing capacity to comprehensively progress the Mokolo-Crocodile Water Augmentation Project (MCWAP) Phase 2A and the Olifants River water resources development project Phase 2B.

During the year to March 31, TCTA had moved the MCWAP Phase 1 into the critical stage of water delivery, while the planned augmentation Mooi-Mgeni transfer scheme Phase 2 was operationalised.

Radzuma also reported the implementation of approved funding strategies for all projects, ensuring that debt management occurred in accordance with the approved limits for each project, including that of Phase 2 of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP-2).

“As the organisation responsible for raising funding for that part of the project related to water transfer to South Africa, including the Polihali dam, transfer tunnel and related works, TCTA has developed an appropriate funding strategy during the year under review,” he said.

The R23-billion funding required for the project implementation of LHWP-2 would be funded through internally generated funds, such as the Vaal River System revenue streams, in addition to bank loans and capital market funding, with liquidity support provided by commercial paper and revolving credit facilities.

TCTA is also considering foreign and local sources of funding.