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Water and Sanitation Deputy Minister, Mr David Mahlobo has called on the contractor appointed to upgrade the Delmas Waste Water Treatment Works (WWTW) in the Victor Khanye Local Municipality to up its game and accelerate the work in order to ensure completion of the project.

Deputy Minister Mahlobo, joined by the Executive Mayors of Victor Khanye local municipality which is the Water Services Authority (WSA), Cllr Vusi Buda and of Nkangala District Municipality, Cllr Thomas Ngwenya, visited the project site to assess the progress of the upgrading of Delmas Waste Water Treatment Works Phase 2 project, on Monday 27 October 2025.

The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) is funding the upgrading of the WWTW at the tune of around R300 million through its Water Services Infrastructure Grant (WSIG) and appointed the Nkangala District as the implementing agent. The Phase 1 which involved the refurbishment of the plant was implemented by Victor Khanye Municipality.

Deputy Minister Mahlobo lamented on the poor performance of the contractor and emphasised that there was a need to put them on terms and ensure that they provide a practical revised plan that will lead to speedy completion of the project, as the plant is currently a big contributor to the pollution in the Bronkhorstspruit river and ultimately the Olifants river. DWS had previously opened a criminal case laid against Victor Khanye for pollution of the water courses.

“These are some of the interventions requested by the province and we (DWS) have worked so hard to ensure that there is allocation to get this project off the ground and get the wastewater system to work because we had opened a case against the municipality for polluting the Bronkhorstspruit River system.  But another reason why we wanted to increase the capacity of the wastewater plant and for the plant to work adequately, is because we have a duty to support the municipality to ensure that they do not continue polluting these rivers and the environment due to inadequate infrastructure.”

“It is for this reason that we agreed for a construction of a state-of-the-art infrastructure with the latest technology to treat the high levels of E.coli and ensure that the effluent released into our water sources meet the required standards,” Deputy Minister Mahlobo said.

The existing conventional plant which receives domestic and industrial sewage from Delmas, Delpark and Eloff is designed to treat 4.5 megalitres per day (ml/d) and is currently operating at an overloaded capacity of 8.5 ml/d which results in effluent not fully treated before its release into the Bronkhorstspruit River. The project seeks to increase the capacity of the plant to 11.5 ml/d.

The Deputy Minister bemoaned the slow progress in the implementation of the project  which started in 2022 and was planned to be completed in May 2024 but was marred with challenges including prevalence of underground water at the site which required sub-soil drainage; use of controlled rock blasting (instead of chemical breaking) around the existing infrastructure; poor procurement plan of materials and payments of labourers by contractor which led to site closure, as well as the inclement weather. 

The project is comprised of civil, mechanical and electrical works which entails construction of new inlet works and electrical panel building, secondary settling tanks, biological reactors, sludge and recycling pumps, sludge treatment and disinfection system, piping system and access walkways, among others.

Issued by the Department of Water & Sanitation