SAHRC provincial head Buang Jones yet again led stakeholders on a walkabout of the facility to monitor progress since the City of Tshwane and Parliament committed to work together to refurbish it.
Mayor Stevens Mokgalapa and MMC for Utility Services Abel Tau recently handed over the site to contractors appointed to refurbish the plant.
This plant cleans most of the City’s sewage water.

But it has aged and is no longer big enough to handle the load due to the population growth over the years.
Mokgalapa and Tau said the City had made a R253million cash injection to rehabilitate the plant.

However, the mayor admitted that a lot more funding - billions to be precise - would be needed to expand the plant so that it could better cope with its load of sewage water.
Jones said: “We received this water complaint some time last year and since our intervention we have seen some significant progress and movement on the part of the City and the water regulator to address the challenges in Hammanskraal and Stinkwater.
“There is interaction between the City and the SAHRC.

“There have been challenges, for instance, the City could not be a part of this site visit because of other commitments, but we would have liked it to be represented to show us how far it has gone in terms of addressing some of the concerns.”
In August, the SAHRC issued a directive to the City to provide alternative potable water of consumable standards to the community of Hammanskraal.
The latest visit was to verify if that and other commitments made by the City had been carried out.


Source: Pretoria News