Pretoria – The City of Tshwane needs at least R12billion to fix its ageing water infrastructure and deal with the problem of leakages once and for all.
The theme for this year was “The impact of water challenges on regional development and economic growth”.
It was attended by government officials, businesspeople and water experts.
Participants highlighted the role of water in attracting direct foreign investment into regional economies like the metro.
“The capex requirement for the capital city to put its water system where it needs to be – and I am not even looking into the future – is R12bn.
If the Development Bank of Southern Africa is willing to give us R12bn because our balance sheet doesn’t allow us to borrow it, I will be the first at your door.” The city also needed at least R6bn to address its poor electricity infrastructure, he said.
For next year, my department has about R1.5bn to address an R18bn backlog.” Developments in the city were affected by Rand Water’s decision to cap its water supply to metropolitan municipalities in Gauteng for the next 10 years, he said.
“Our short-term issue is predominantly that Rand Water that supplies 70% of our water has capped the supply to the city and all other metros in Gauteng for the next 10 years, until the Lesotho Highland project’s next phase comes online.
“We have a number of projects, where we will more and more utilise our own water resources to supply the city.” The city had expanded its water purification plant in Temba and Hammanskraal by doubling its capacity from its resources, Moss said.
“The localisation is particularly difficult because the southern Africa region is not only a dry area, but in all of the climate change scenarios that we have looked at, even the most optimistic scenarios are saying that we are going to be even drier.” Naidoo said South Africa was the third driest country in the world.