October 31, 2006
By Lucky Sindane
JOHANNESBURG Water is set to spend an estimated R200-million over the next four years installing basic water and sanitation services in all the informal settlements across the City.
The City's water and sanitation utility officially launched Project Thonifho, the four-year project, on 31 October. Presiding over the ceremony was the mayoral committee member for infrastructure and services, Ros Greeff, and the utility's managing director, Gerald Dumas.
The project will see the delivery of 20 000 individual ventilated improved (VIP) toilets. All the households will also be connected to the infrastructure through communal standpipes by 2007.
"We aim to ensure every household has at least a basic level of service until we can provide high level services for everyone in formal areas," said Greeff.
Work is expected to start sometime in November and the first beneficiaries of the Thonifho Project will be in the Diepsloot reception area, in northern Johannesburg.
The MD of Johannesburg Water (Pty) Ltd Mr Gerald Dumas with MMC for Infrastructure and services Ros Greeff during the launch of the basic water and sanitation services project
(Photo: Enoch Lehung, City of Johannesburg)
"Next year the project will be expanded to ensure that we reach our goal of eradicating all water backlogs by 2008 and all sanitation backlogs by 2010," said Greeff.
"In the past informal settlements were often neglected. However, in line with the executive mayor's priorities for his five year term of office, the City is committed to improving service delivery especially in informal settlements and especially through improved water and sanitation services," she added.
Dumas said that informal settlements were areas that needed the most urgent attention.
"The City has been working steadily to eradicate service backlogs for many years but new research shows that we need to scale up and accelerate our programs to eradicate service backlogs," he said.
Project Thonifho is a temporary initiative until the informal settlements are formalised.
"This basic services program is an interim measure to provide at least basic water and sanitation services as soon as possible to as many people as possible," Dumas said.
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