Skills shortfall has impact on water
|Published
Cape Town. 130613. Caron Van Zeil in one of many water tunnel systems that run though Cape Town City. Picture COURTNEY AFRICA Cape Town. 130613. Caron Van Zeil in one of many water tunnel systems that run though Cape Town City. Picture COURTNEY AFRICA
Durban - Wastewater systems in municipalities nationally are failing because of poor maintenance and a lack of skilled operators and capacity.
This was according to a study by the Water Research Commission in partnership with the South African Local Government Association.
The report found that many of the 18 municipalities in the study took a reactive approach to maintenance, running their assets to the point of failure.
Insufficient funding or a failure by municipalities to allocate funding and put in place preventative maintenance programmes were also cited.
Commission executive manager Jay Bhagwan said the study had assessed municipal wastewater treatment facilities, assessing the technology choices of municipalites against their ability to implement and administer such choices.
Bhagwan said 44 percent of the municipalities in the study had unsuitable technology, and if this statistic was applied to the 850 municipal plants nationally “it would translate to approximately 374 plants” that were potentially facing this problem.
He said the number was significant enough to support further investigation into measures to reduce the risk to the municipal wastewater services sector.
“Existing works are often inadequate for the demands that are being made upon them, most often in terms of physical loading or suitable treatment processes.”
Contributing to poor performance were increased service provision, including housing development, exacerbated by inadequate long-term integrated planning, Bhagwan said.
Senior manager for works in eThekwini’s Water and Sanitation unit, Mohamed Dildar, said the city had effective technologies for wastewater treatment based on internationally accepted treatment processes.
“The treatment facilities are maintained continuously through planned and emergency maintenance programmes,” he said.
However, he added that an upgrade programme was under way.
Daily News