On 28 April 2022 our Chair, Dawie van Wyk, and Mr Stuart Lavender (a private Engineer) attended an on-site inspection of the pump stations as per this report (click here to read that report). We accordingly followed up with the Municipal Manager for a report based on PARRA’s findings.
Correspondence was accordingly addressed to the Municipal Manager on 6 May 2022 and included in the correspondence was (Ms. Vithi – Director of Infrastructure and Georgina Nkombisa – Customer Care officer). The email read as follows:
Dear MM,
After the PARRA visit to Pump Stations No’s 1 & 2 could we have some feedback on the status of the various pumps and when all the pumps will be operational? That would be:
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- Four Pumps at PS No 2
- Five Pumps at PS No 1 one of which dedicated to the completed pipeline from behind the weir to the SHD.
- Infrastructure needs to draw up a scheduled maintenance programme for all Pumps and Motors pumping water into and from the SHD, the Balancing Dam the Nemato Water Treatment Plant. If this preventative maintenance schedule is religiously done we should never have the situation we have now. We should also have standby pumps in case of a pump failure.
- Could PARRA have keys to the SHD, gate next to the road and the gates on either side of the weir and then also the Balancing Dam?
- PARRA could easily then monitor and report about the situation at Pump Stations 1 & 2.
- What is the situation at the Central Belt Boreholes?
- Have the newly drilled boreholes at Mansfield (2) Dam and Grovehill farm (5) been connected to our reticulation system yet?
- Have the sewage pumps that overflow and spill sewage down the hill and into the Kowie River been fixed yet?
- PARRA proposed that the 21 sewage pump stations in Port Alfred have an audit done? It appears this has not been done.
Could we urgently meet again to discuss these issues please?
Dawie
(PARRA Chair)
On the same date we received the following response from the MM:
Good Day Chair
I must appreciate the report you gave me subsequent to your visit to SHD and as a result of that I arranged a trip to there the following day. In fact I was accompanied by the Director and DD of Infra , Shayi and the CFO so that he can see and understand that preventative measures now are better than hiring water trucks to cart water to all PA settlements hence it is important to avoid that stage . Indeed what is in your report is a true reflection of what is obtaining there .
We had no choice but to request Shayi to organise quotes for parts to quickly repair what you and him identified as the problem . He is busy attending to the problem and I am closely monitoring this one .
Let me request the Infra department to respond to the rest of your questions and requests.
Regards
Rolly-MM
We shall continue to monitor and follow up on this process as we do not want this situation to occur again.
*Correspondence posted for the sake of transparency and accountability.
