The Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation Pamela Tshwete handed over the upgraded Swellendam Waste Water Treatment Works on Friday.

The upgrading of the Swellendam Waste Water Treatment Works (WWTW) was necessary to ensure the increase of effluent treatment capacity of Swellendam and increase the existing treated effluent quality to meet the requirements of the department.

The plant will provide wastewater treatment to address a backlog of serving more than 20 000 people from both Swellendam and Railton and cater for future growth.

During the construction phase, 109 people from the close communities were employed. These community members gained work experience that would make them marketable in the employment-seeking world.

According to Tshwete, this project will unleash the potential of the Swellendam town and Railton settlements to implement its 15 year development plans.

The project will assist the towns to create an enabling environment for the creation of jobs. The capacity of the plant will no longer be a challenge in economic expansion.

This has allowed the Municipality to regain confidence to implement its housing and local economic developments.

Tshwete said that it is also encouraging that the Swellendam Municipality’s Green Drop score has improved immensely from 47% in 2011 to 74.88% in 2013. With this upgrade, it is expected to improve even further.

“In the final analysis, the co-operation and success of this upgrade by all three tiers of government will truly lead to an overall improvement in the lives of all South Africans, but more especially those within this area of the Southern Cape,” concluded Tshwete.

The total cost of upgrading the Swellendam WWTW project was R68 341 129. The project was co-funded by the Department of Water and Sanitation (R 42 611 156), COGTA (R 2 578 725), Swellendam Municipality (R 1 151 248) and Human Settlements (R 22 000 000).