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Pretoria - The Department of Water Affairs has lent its support and R200m to efforts by the National Ratepayers' Union (NRU) to straighten out failing municipal sewerage works.
Jaap Kelder, spokesperson for the NRU, says this development is the biggest breakthrough to date for self-help municipal government.
The NRU coordinates action in more than 200 towns where residents are declaring disputes with their local authorities over poor service delivery. Municipal taxes are then paid into a separate account and residents use this money to do what the municipality is neglecting to do.
In 59 towns the process has reached the stage where an official dispute has been declared, and in 20 of these towns the money is already being held back.
The NRU has given the department an undertaking that, within six to 10 weeks, a difference will be evident at municipal sewerage works. They are going full steam ahead with corrective actions in the 20 towns where local taxpayer unions have their own funds.
Last week Dr Sizwe Mkhize, deputy director-general of the department, at a meeting with the NRU apparently acknowledged that massive pollution was taking place in three particular areas:
sewage contamination from municipalities; and
sewage contamination from squatter camps.
The NRU said that its members were able to take charge of malfunctioning sewerage works, but were powerless if the municipal manager concerned did not cooperate.
The department has undertaken to support the efforts of the NRU in such instances.
Mkhize told the meeting that in the current financial year R200m had been budgeted to repair malfunctioning municipal sewage works.
Of this, R70m had been earmarked for the area upstream of the Vaal Dam, about which the departments of water wffairs and agriculture and land affairs, which participated in the discussion, were extremely concerned.
According to Kelder, the NRU would tackle the task as far as possible with the money already in the trust accounts as they can work faster when unhampered by government red tape.
Where this money is inadequate the NRU will liaise with the department.
The agreement with the Department of Water Affairs follows years in which the NRU has been ignored by government.
Since the beginning of this year there are increasing signs that the organisation is being taken seriously. Sicelo Shiceka, Minister of Provincial and Local Government, has previously acknowledged that the NRU's complaints are valid and that the Treasury has instructed its provincial counterparts to assist in resolving disputes in their provinces.
- Sake24.com
For more business news in Afrikaans, go to Sake24.com.