DA to call on President Ramaphosa to institute an SIU probe into uThukela pumps debacle

22 February 2023

The DA in KwaZulu-Natal will write to President Cyril Ramaphosa to request for a Special Investigation Unit (SIU) probe into the uThukela District six pumps debacle that cost the ratepayer R45 million .

This comes after the DA gave the District 72 hours to produce a report on the six pumps that were flooded in April 2022 but were never given back to the original manufacturer for repairs but instead given to a third party that wrote them off.

Post the 72 hours’ deadline given to the district municipality to respond to our concerns, both the Mayor and the Municipal Manager had called the DA for a meeting to discuss the situation an also provided the attached response.

This response was based on questions submitted in May 2022, nine months after the fact!

None of our concerns have been adequately addressed, without getting into the semantics of the written response, as opposition in council it makes no difference who or who did not fund the original project in 2018. The simple fact is that R45 million was spent on a project which we are informed should have lasted 25 years.

The fact that the original contractor had written to the municipality requesting access to the pumps to access any damage was never responded to nor granted.

In the official response clearly not all six pumps were damaged.

We are also in possession of the telemetry reports which clearly indicate that during both floods most pumps continued to operate and supply water, more capacity than is the current case.

So our unanswered questions remain, who or which company assessed the damaged pumps and reached the conclusion that all the pumps had to be replaced? A copy of this report would assist us in concluding this matter.

The six original pumps, according to the official response, are on private property and not in the possession of the Municipality. A simple solution here would be to appoint an independent expert, excluding both companies that have been used, to determine the extent of any damage to the pumps?

The DA is clearly left with more questions than answers and the current response from officials leaves us with no further option but to take the following steps:

-Write to the President calling for an SIU investigation and or
- Request council to undertake a section 106 investigation by KwaZulu-Natal Cooperative Government and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA).

We will continue to pursue this matter, through all channels available to us.

We will also instruct our councillors to refrain from supporting any IFP motion or proposals until we have answers or have been able to determine that due process was followed in the refurbishment of the pump station.

The DA is as always willing to work with the IFP in the district, what all that we require is co-operation from the uThukela District Municipality.

All the while the residents of the community face continued water challenges on an hourly basis, just this past weekend the 2 new installed pumps stopped working.

Issued by Francois Rodgers, DA KZN Leader, 22 February 2023