By Liesl Frankson

Executive Mayor of Polokwane, Councillor Thembi Nkadimeng, has laid out plans for major improvements to some of the municipality’s infrastructure.

Speaking at a media briefing on her 100 days in office, Nkadimeng addressed issues relating to water shortages, capacity at waste water treatment plants, electricity supply and roads.

According to the Executive Mayor, the municipality took a decision to look at alternative funding models and finally settled on the concept of off balance sheet projects. “These are projects that are rolled out through Public Private Partnerships (PPP). The concept is supported and guided by the Municipal Finance Management Act, Section 78 of the Systems Act and 2005 Municipal Regulations on PPP,” she explained.

The projects are already registered with the National Treasury for quality assurance that the municipality will not run into a loss by entering into private partnerships. Nkadimeng pointed out that they have appointed a project officer, who will work with transactional advisors on feasibility studying, to oversee concept planning and implementation.

Planned projects and upgrades

Nkadimeng addressed the challenges at the Seshego and Polokwane sewage plants, which are operating beyond their design capacity, and laid out the budgets and corrective action taken for each.

Work on the Seshego plant commenced in September this year and R10 million was allocated to the project. The scope of the project includes emptying five primary settling tanks by removing sludge and grit, removing and cleaning biological filters up to 1m deep and repairing the valves in order to be able to remove grit from the grit channel, since the channel is cleaned manually.

Anglo Platinum has allocated R80 million to the 6Ml/d upgrade of the Polokwane Sewerage plant and the municipality is currently awaiting approval from the Department of Water and Sanitation, on the licence application for the upgrade.”Work on the project will not commence until the licence has been issued by the Department of Water and Sanitation, “explained Nkadimeng.

Other projects in the municipality include re gravelling of roads in rural areas, to which R8 million has been budgeted and five contractors appointed. The municipality is currently in the process of getting a loan to electrify 7 533 households in rural villages.
The Development Bank of South Africa has approved R57.4 million towards the project, for the 2015/2016 and 2016/2017 financial years, however final approval is still pending from the National Treasury.