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The Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation, Mr David Mahlobo has expressed his delight at the progress made by Rand Water in stopping sewer spillages in some parts of the Vaal but remarked that acceleration is needed to speed up the work.

Deputy Minister Mahlobo traversed Sebokeng Zone 10, on Wednesday, 23 March 2022, visiting various households who were at the receiving end of the stench that spilled in their yards as a result of malfunctioning infrastructure in the Emfuleni Local Municipality. He was accompanied by Sedibeng District Municipality Executive Mayor, Cllr Lerato Maloka, her Emfuleni Local Municipality counterpart, Cllr Sipho Radebe, local councilors and officials from the Department of Water and Sanitation and Rand Water.

The purpose of the site visit was to assess progress made to date since the appointment of Rand Water as the implementing agent to stop the long-standing issues of sewer spillages in households, streets and leading into Vaal River. 

Visiting various households, Deputy Minister Mahlobo apologised to the residents for government’s delay in getting rid of the stench that caused discomfort, health hazard for community members and contaminated water in the Vaal River.

“Our first mandate is to stop sewer spillage in people’s homes, and we assigned Rand Water because we trust it as our entity and with their capacity. Sewer in people’s homes was our biggest headache, it was causing lots of inconvenience, children were starting to have respiratory problems”, he emphasized.

Deputy Minister Mahlobo added that key to the task at hand was to divert sewer from the street to the nearby Treatment Plant because the Plant’s capacity had been expanded to deal with large volumes of inflows. He said he is pleased that the treatment plant is starting to receive the flow that is needed to be treated without flowing to Vaal River.

“We are very pleased at the progress made thus far and we applaud Rand Water for taking the bull by its horns and steadily make some headways. I came here early this year to introduce Rand Water and the contractors, they have since managed to deal with the first task in Zone 10 and the sewer is now out of people’s homes”, he said.

Moreover, Deputy Mahlobo decried the extent to which the infrastructure was vandalized in the Vaal and the extent of pollution, saying more than 40 pumpstations were not working due to vandalism and a lot of money has been spent on reviving the pumpstations. 

“Some citizens have decided to misbehave with elements of vandalism and government is spending a lot of money in trying to secure infrastructure, people are stealing cables and that money should be going to service delivery. These are organized gangs and criminals that need to be stopped before they cause more damage”, added Mahlobo.

He said government will be putting more resources to rehabilitate the Vaal River to ensure development as the country’s Gross Domestic Products are dependent on a healthy Vaal River System.

Deputy Minister Mahlobo has pleaded to communities to change their behaviour and to stop pollution as it is a detriment to the country’s development. 

Issued by the Department of Water & Sanitation