Contractor Speaks Out on Makana Pump Supply Debacle

• In 2022, Makana municipality paid R2.7-million for a pump needed as part of their water supply system.
• A further R2-million due on the contract has never been paid, resulting in the 1.6-tonne pump remaining undelivered.
• In 2023, the former engineering and infrastructure director at the municipality was dismissed. One of the charges was that she made an unauthorised pre-payment for the pump. This was ruled to be false.
• Much of the Makhanda water supply currently teeters on one working pump, with at least three pumps set to be repaired or refurbished, according to municipal reports.

Three years ago, the Makana municipality paid an East London-based company R2.7-million to supply and install a pump which forms part of the water supply system for Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown). To date, the pump has not been supplied, as payment arrangements with the contractor have not been met.

Former engineering and infrastructure director Asanda Gidana was unfairly dismissed in November 2023 for facilitating the pre-payment for the pump and for failing to obtain the necessary competency certificates for her position within 18 months of her appointment.

Gidana disputed the grounds for her dismissal at the Bargaining Council, which ruled in her favour on both counts and ordered that she be paid six months’ salary amounting to R635,000, as she did not want her job back at the municipality.

Councillor Phillip Machanik, of the Makana Citizens’ Front (MCF) party, said councillors were not even made aware of the existence of the pump, which has since been found to be at the manufacturer’s premises in Benoni, until the report on Gidana’s dismissal was presented to the council.

In June, MCF leader Lungile Mxube laid a criminal charge of fraud against the municipality for paying for the pump without ensuring its delivery and commissioning, and for incurring the costs of Gidana’s payout.

In the meantime, the municipality has for more than a decade not been able to provide a consistent supply of water to the iconic Eastern Cape city, and has mismanaged its finances to the point it has received disclaimers of opinion from the Auditor General for six years in a row. (A disclaimer of opinion is the lowest audit rating, indicating the municipality is not able to provide enough financial documentation to enable the Auditor General to express an opinion on the finances.)

Tender in the middle

A R4.7-million tender for the sourcing, supply, installation, and commissioning of a pump and motor was awarded to East London-based company Manco Business Enterprise in mid-2022.

The pump is one of a set of pumps needed to transfer raw water from the Howieson’s Poort Dam to Makhanda’s Waainek Water Treatment Works, which supplies 8Ml of water to the city per day.

The Waainek Water Treatment Works (WTW) is one of two water treatment works supplying Makhanda. The other is the James Kleynhans WTW, which has experienced overruns and missed deadlines on an upgrade project that began in 2016.

Gidana’s Bargaining Council arbitration award states Manco received a payment of R2.7-million from the Makana municipality. This is not contested. GroundUp has established that Manco then ordered the pump and motor from Donnlee Pump Tech in Benoni. It was reported by Daily Maverick, and verified by GroundUp, that the pump was manufactured by Donnlee, but remains at their premises as the required payments for delivery and commissioning have not been honoured.

Donnlee Pump Tech project and technical advisor Francois Grobbelaar said they were trying to finalise matters with the Makana municipality, but did not want to speak further on the matter as they did not want to “put the process at risk”.

Manco director Mohale Nchaupa confirmed the company received an initial R2.7-million payment from the municipality, and subsequently paid the required deposit to Donnlee to manufacture the pump and import the motor.

While there was an approximately R1.3-million difference between what Manco received from the municipality, and what it paid across to Donnlee, Nchaupa said this was money due to Manco.

He said the Makana municipality had never paid the “second phase”, which would secure delivery of the pump and motor to the municipality, despite Manco having honoured the service level agreement with the municipality. He said he has since ceded the contract to Donnlee. Additionally, he said Makana still owed Manco about R2-million for work previously done at James Kleynhans water treatment works.

Lack of maintenance

The James Kleynhans treatment works receives water from the Glen Melville Dam on the Orange/Fish scheme, and the upgrade was announced in 2015 as the solution to the city’s water troubles. The upgrade was meant to double the treatment works’ capacity from 10Ml to 20Ml per day by 2017. It is yet to be completed. The costs have ballooned from an initial R160-million to more than R700-million to date, according to Machanik.

Nchaupa said Manco had previously been awarded a procurement tender to provide two pumps for the James Kleynhans site in 2020. Manco obtained the pumps from Donnlee, and the work was completed.

He said on this project, the municipality asked him to do extra work, such as connect the pumps to an automated monitoring system, which he was not paid for.

“I said ‘how am I going to be paid?’ They said, ‘we’ll find a way’.”

But several weeks afterwards, he was upset to discover the pumps and motors, which are installed below ground level, had been flooded after heavy rains because smaller pumps that are supposed to pump water out of the well in which they are situated had not been switched on.

“I had just procured and installed pumps that cost R5.4-million and hear after two months they are submerged. That is nonsense. There’s no maintenance.”

Pump shortage

As previously reported, there should be three pumps available to transfer water from Howieson’s Poort Dam to the Waainek Water Treatment Works. Two pumps should work alternately to relieve continual wear and tear, with a third as backup.

A report from the municipality’s infrastructural development portfolio committee meeting of 10 July reveals there are two pumps at Howieson’s Poort, “one running and the other on standby”.

The report also mentions another pump for Howieson’s Poort being repaired by an international company called Sulzer, even though a new pump for Howieson’s Poort is sitting at the Donnlee factory.

The municipal reports state there is only one fully working pump at James Kleynhans water treatment works. The second pump is “on limp mode”, and a purchase order of R 157,000 has been issued to Sulzer for its repair. Another purchase order of R2.2-million has also been issued to Sulzer to refurbish a “third pump”. The report notes that payment of a 50% deposit is required. It is unclear if this has been paid and repairs are taking place.

Amatola Water spokesperson Nolitha Mbangcolo said they intended to fix one of the James Kleynhans water treatment works pumps “around March/April” but returned the pump to Makana “without being repaired as there were no funds to do so”.

Makana municipality has failed to respond to questions.

© 2025 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.

We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, not tracking users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.