The Minister of Water and Sanitation, Senzo Mchunu, said the cholera outbreak highlights the need to introduce legislation to make it easier for the national government to intervene in municipalities.
Mchunu said his department has been aware of troubles at the Rooiwal Wastewater Treatment Plant for quite some time.
Rooiwal is at the centre of the water crisis in Hammanskraal, where there’s an outbreak of cholera that has claimed at least 21 lives.
The minister said there is the provision in the Constitution, as laid out in Section 63, that allowed the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) to upgrade and refurbish municipal water systems.
However, this intervention would only be possible once the municipality has been placed under administration.
In 2020, the Tshwane municipality was placed under administration, however, this was later overturned by the Constitutional Court.
Mchunu said this further delayed the much-needed upgrade on the Rooiwal plant.
“That became a problem when the city chose a hard line against working with [DWS]. I mean, there is a letter that even said, ‘we want your money, not your intervention’.”
-EWN
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Mzansi’s hottest teacher, a KwaZulu-Natal-based educator Lulu Menziwa aka SA’s ‘sexy’ teacher blue ticked trolls on social media on Thursday, 25 May by switching off her comment section on her T-shirt post on Instagram.
The controversial educator Lulu Menziwa, who’s been receiving criticism from social media users for showing off her thighs and wearing a T-shirt to school switched off her comment section on Instagram to mute her critics. But social media users slammed her latest outfit and shared her attire on Twitter. Learn More