Makhanda’s water treatment works has been undergoing an upgrade since 2015, with completion deadlines having been extended since 2017.
- Makhanda, formerly Grahamstown, has been experiencing water shortages for more than a decade.
- Upgrades to double the output of the town’s water treatment works began in 2015 and were supposed to have been completed two years later.
- But completion deadlines are still being extended, seven years later.
Amatola Water has again missed the deadline for completion of the James Kleynhans Water Treatment Works (JKWTW) upgrades in Makhanda. This is the latest in a string of delays stretching back to 2017.
The project, initially budgeted at R102-million, started in 2015 and was meant to have been completed in December 2017. After numerous deadline extensions, the budget has ballooned to R393-million, according to implementing agent, Amatola Water.
The water service utility’s stakeholder manager Amanda Skritch on 7 April said the completion date has been pushed to the end of June. The April deadline which has now been missed, was itself revised from an earlier December 2023 completion deadline.
“The primary obstacle to the completion of the JKWTW project has been the contractor’s financial constraints, leading to delays,” said Skritch.
“Consequently, the revised practical completion date for the project culmination is now the end of June 2024. The project upgrades have not yet reached practical completion. However, efforts are underway to finalise the Phase 2 contract.”
She said the expanded budget of R393-million is not affected by the latest deadline extension, but did not say how much had already been spent.
Amatola Water was appointed as the implementing agent with Bosch Projects as consulting engineers to undertake the design and implementation of the upgrade, with funding from the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS).
This phase 2 of the upgrade project would double the plant’s potable water output by providing an additional 10-million litres of water per day to Makhanda. The town currently uses 18-million litres of water per day, said Makana Local Municipality municipal manager Phumelelo Kate.
Mamlambo Construction Company, which was appointed by Amatola Water to do the upgrades, was liquidated in June 2022. At the time, Kate said Mamlambo was experiencing financial challenges and could not honour payments to local subcontractors. This led to unrest that delayed the project. A new contractor, Water and Wastewater Technology SA, was appointed on 25 November 2022.
Kate said the DWS was the project funder and directly pays Amatola Water, which in turn pays the contractor.
He said the 20-million litres of water per day that would be supplied once the upgrade is complete, would be enough for the entire town.
But former municipal councillor Philip Machanick says the revised completion dates have no credibility.
“Amatola Water Board should admit that they are not competent to implement such projects and ask the national government to appoint a competent implementation agency,” said Machanick. “I have lost track of the number of broken promises.”
He said on 16 August last year, the DWS minister promised the work would be completed by the end of that month, and promised he would return to the town in a month. “It is now over eight months later and we are told the end of June. We are yet to see the minister again,” said Machanick.
Meanwhile, Makhanda has been experiencing water outages and water shedding, for years.
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Sweetness
Interview with a pirate:
There was a pirate who had agreed to do an interview with a local tv station. The reporter was very courteous and professional, giving a bit of background as to the pirate\’s business. She then began interviewing him.
\”So Mr. Longbeard, are there any risks to your business? I see you have a peg leg- how did that come about?\”
\”Well, y\’see I were sailing along the coast of South Africa, looking to plunder some locals when as I boarded the small boat from the ship, a great white shark came up and got my leg clean off. \’twas scary yes, but thus is the life of a pirate.\”
\”Wow, that is pretty scary- well, how about your hook? What happened to your hand with that?\”
\”Oh now that\’s quite the tale, y\’see I were fighting a rival pirate, and we had locked swords. We had been fighting for a few hours, and were both terribly fatigued. I had a bit of exhaustion and confusion, and when I went to block one of his sword blows, I met him with me hand instead of me sword. Took it right off, but it shocked him so much I managed to get him back pretty good and have him submit. So the hook hand was given as a replacement.\”
\”Wow. Simply fascinating. Now, what about your eye patch? How did that happen?\”
\”Well, one day, a seagull was flying overhead, and I looked up. It pooped right in me eye.\”
\”… Well wow. I must admit, I wouldn\’t think just seagull poop could damage the eye that badly.\”
\”Oh, I forgot to mention… it were me first day with the hook.\”
Virgo Moon
The Man who could only Drink Milk
I know an old man who had lived a life full of adventure, but his health started to catch up with him. He\’d run the Boston Marathon, was an avid surfer, and climbed Everest, but he\’d started to have abdominal pains around his 85th birthday and went to see a doctor. Sadly, he ultimately was diagnosed with a rare degenerative liver disease that slowly made him allergic to everything he ate.
He kept copious notes, and as an avid gastronomist slowly grew to despair as everything he\’d spent his life enjoying became something he could no longer eat. Alcohol went first, then mushrooms, then bread, then root vegetables, then coffee, one at a time he had to remove them from his diet. The doctor was clear: if he kept eating something his liver rejected the autoimmune response would be quick and severe, and would lead to a painful death. Little by little, everything was taken away as an option, until the only thing that remained was milk.
In some ways, this actually made life easier, because the mental strain of remembering what he could and couldn\’t eat was gone, but then so was the joy in variety. But he took it in stride, and got his own cow and took classes from a farmer to learn everything he could about the only thing that could give him sustenance. And even within milk, he could still have yogurt, butter, cream, some cheeses, and other milk-derived products he hadn\’t fully rejected yet, so it wasn\’t all bad. But then one day a few months later he felt the pain again, and he knew cow\’s milk was no longer an option.
Lacking other options, he tried goat\’s milk, and he was delighted that it worked! The protein structure is just different enough that his body still tolerated it. That bought him another month. And that\’s when we came up with a wonderful plan to go on one last grand adventure around the world. If he could get one month of life out of the milk of every mammal, he\’d actually have a few more years to enjoy life to the fullest and see the world in all its beauty. Each month, we\’d pick a place with a new mammal, and he would immerse himself fully with the locals, learn all the ways to prepare the milk, and just enjoy the hand he had been dealt as much as he could.
We milked sheep in New Zealand. Camels in Egypt. Zebras in South Africa. Giant bats in Indonesia. Do you know how many Peruvian cuy you need to milk to get a single glass? I do. Even as his health slowly faded, he stayed cheerful, and I felt lucky to join him on the adventure of a lifetime. That brings us to today when he got to the very end of his spreadsheet, and declared that he was now allergic to every mammal. He\’d enjoyed his journey, but his time had come to an end, for there was nothing left to milk.
To which I said nonsense, I bet we can milk a few thousand karma out of this post.