The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Capricorn District Municipality (CDM) is outraged by the collapse of yet another water project and will demand that the municipal Council urgently institute a full forensic investigation. The defunct R11 million purification plant at Letswatla has never operated since it was built more than a decade ago.
This investigation must include the immediate disclosure of all consultants, engineers and contractors involved, a detailed explanation for the project’s failure, and clear identification of those who must be held accountable.
A decade after its construction, the plant remains a wasted, non-functional asset due to a fundamentally flawed design, the absence of electrification, and a complete failure of municipal oversight. The purification system cannot produce potable water because it is incompatible with the steel reservoir. The reservoir leaks heavily, proving that neither the design nor the workmanship met even minimum engineering standards.
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Despite the site being declared “completed,” Eskom never electrified the plant, meaning it has never been switched on, tested, or commissioned.
To compensate for the defective design, four Jojo tanks were later installed raising questions about why engineers and the municipality approved a system that could never function. Although all components are allegedly on site, the transformer remains uninstalled, the plant is unelectrified, and there is no evidence that the system works.
The original contractor was later blacklisted, which only deepens concerns about CDM’s procurement integrity, contract management, and quality assurance. The community has received no benefit whatsoever from a project funded with public money.
The consequences for residents are immediate and severe. The community relies on a borehole in a neighbouring village, with water pressure so low that only one street receives water at a time. Households often receive water only once a week. Valves repeatedly block including those supplying the local clinic compromising essential health services. A second borehole has been requested for years, yet CDM continues to ignore the community’s pleas.
These failures constitute clear violations of:
- The Municipal Finance Management Act – fruitless and wasteful expenditure and failure to ensure value for money;
- The Municipal Systems Act – failure to provide basic services;
- Supply Chain Management Regulations – defective procurement and poor contract management;
- The Water Services Act – failure to provide clean and safe drinking water;
- Engineering Council of South Africa standards – as no competent engineer would have approved such a fundamentally incompatible design.
Where the DA governs, we insist on clean, transparent, and accountable governance that delivers real, measurable improvements to the lives of the communities we serve.