Water and Sanitation Minister Senzo Mchunu has attributed the collapse of the R3 billion Giyani water project to a lack of proper planning.
Mchunu says there was poor planning from the Lepelle Northern Water Board that was tasked with implementing the project to supply 55 villages around Giyani with water.
The minister and several municipal officials together with water boards are in discussions to provide solutions to bringing relief to residents.
Mchunu says the multi-billion rand project also lacked monitoring.
“We will of course be resolving the main issue of Giyani water, firstly this scheme according to the report we get from the water board and our offices here, there was no scoping when they started. Lepelle was made the implementing agent, and work was started without scoping, without designs, without a proper budget, it went up to R3.3 billion already spent and no water still. After R3.3 billion, the upper budget they are talking about is R4.1 billion.”
Mchunu has made an undertaking that a newly revised plan for water provision in the Giyani area will start being implemented in a week’s time.
“The timeline is in a week’s time, the plan will be placed before us as the ministry and we will consider it. If we agree on it we will then source money and fund it so that we know that is now the full scope, this is the full budget, while investigations continue but strongly monitored and supervised by us.”
