Eastern Cape Business 2017 edition

OVERVIEW
Water
The Eastern Cape is tackling water shortages through new dams and improved controls.
SECTOR INSIGHT
The Umzimvubu Dam project
will provide water and hydropower.
• Rhodes University’s
Institute for Water
Research tests water
quality.
Water services are provided to the citizens of the Eastern
Cape by 17 water service authorities which oversee
163 drinking water supply systems. Muncipalities and
Amatola Water are the primary providers of services.
Purification, desalination, water-leakage management and wastewater
treatment are some of the problems facing the sector as a whole,
and solutions are urgently needed. This is an important issue that
entrepreneurs with good ideas would do well to tackle. According to
Water Wheel magazine, 37% of water delivered to the nation’s municipalities
is lost. This challenge presents an opportunity for companies
who can find a solution, for example by providing better pipes and
connections and smart metering.
A water supply and hydropower project is underway on the
Umzimvubu River. The R12-billion mega-project entails the construction
of two multipurpose dams, Ntabelanga and Laleni Dams, on the
Tsitsa River, which is a tributary of the Umzimvubu, to supply irrigated
agriculture, domestic and industrial water requirements, and hydropower
generation in the catchment area. The smaller dam at Tsitsa
Falls will supply the hydropower
element of the project.
The Umzimvubu catchment
and river system stretches for
over 200km from its source in
the Maloti-Drakensberg watershed
on the Lesotho escarpment
to Port St Johns. A large
number of organisations and
municipalities are in partnership
to preserve the river system and
surrounding catchment area. The
river and adjacent forests, grasslands,
thickets and dune vegetation
are amazingly diverse but
are threatened in various ways.
The Umzimvubu Catchment
Partnership Programme wants
to find ways protect the environment
while helping with poverty
alleviation through the provision
of water, erosion control and fodder
for livestock and food security.
Inter-basin water transfers are
the norm in South Africa. In the
1950s, the Orange River Project
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