9 March 2009
Water provision and infrastructure challenges in the Mpumalanga Province
will soon be a thing of the past. This is as the province is launching one of
its five flagship projects - "Water for All". The special intervention project
is to provide a model for local authorities to ensure that the roll out of
sustainable water infrastructure is accelerated in order to eradicate water
backlogs by 2010. The project is a direct intervention to provide dedicated
project management capacity, leadership and concentrated resources to eradicate
the water backlogs.
The main objective of the project is to accelerate the roll-out of water
infrastructure to meet higher level of services by 2010, in order to ensure
that the basic level of services are progressively provided in areas without
infrastructure. The Water for All programme is a unique project that provides a
model for local authorities, with an objective to ensure that the roll-out of
sustainable water infrastructure is accelerated provincially and that all water
service backlogs are eradicated by 2010. This can only be achieved through
multidisciplinary cross sector involvement, and co-operation and co-ordination
on all spheres of government.
The Water for All flagship projects focuses on three priorities
namely:
* Priority A: Refers to the households and communities, who have no formal
water supply at all, i.e. people get their water from rivers, streams and
dams.
* Priority B: Secondary focus which refers to households and communities that
have some formal water infrastructure, but there are inadequate and the
operation and maintenance of the infrastructure has been neglected.
* Priority C: Refers to the higher levels of service, which will contribute to
the economic development in the province. Higher levels of service can refer to
better infrastructure such as yard and house connections as opposed to communal
standpipes.
Work is currently underway at the 10 of the 18 identified provincial
priority sites. Nearly 140 000 households provincially have been reached and
the overall aim is to reach a total of at least 283 454 households by 2010. The
launch will start with a visit to various projects in villages around Nkomazi
and later follow with a community gathering scheduled for:
Venue: Kamhlushwa stadium
Date: 12 March 2009
Time: 09h00
Premier Thabang Makwetla, MEC Candith Mashego-Dlamini, members of the
Executive Council and other dignitaries will grace the launch of this
project.
Contact:
Simphiwe Kunene
Cell: 082 413 3931
Issued by: Department of Local Government, Mpumalanga Provincial
Government
9 March 2009
