A municipality in Mpumalanga has ended its contract with the Rand Water Board

A municipality in Mpumalanga has ended its contract with the Rand Water Board, opting to sort itself out instead – at a fraction of the cost. According to Bushbuckridge Mayor Sylvia Nxumalo, the municipality was paying about R24m a month to the board for the supply of water. “We estimate that we will be able to save about R15m per month to do it ourselves. “Two years ago, we already found that in future, our budget will not be able to pay such an amount to Rand Water.”

Council takeover Responsibility for 147 employees, who work for the Rand Water Board on the municipal bulk water supply project, will now be taken over by the council. “Once all plans are in place, we will also take over the rest of the staff who are currently working for Rand Water on the municipality’s reticulation project. For this project, we set aside R30m.” Currently, 85% of all the households in the municipality are being supplied with running water. The mayor says this supply will improve when they start extracting purified water from the Sabie River. The council will make use of boreholes to complete the servicing of stands which still don’t have access to running water.