Private property owners service Ekurhuleni’s canal at own cost

The Vorsterskroon drainage canal has become a detrimental biological hazard over past years with the Ekurhuleni Metro Municipality (EMM) allegedly not taking full responsibility for their end of the upkeep and maintenance of the canal flowing through EMM properties.
According to Bottari Properties (Pty) Ltd spokesperson Rose Nixon, when the company acquired a property from EMM they signed a deed agreement to uphold and service an EMM drainage canal that flows through their property.
“We are responsible to ensure the canal is clear and free from any obstruction at all times, but feel EMM is not upholding their end of the agreement considering what the canal’s condition is upstream and downstream from us”, Rose said.
Sabelo Lushaba (an official from the Department of Water Quality) said he visited the sites numerous times after issues were raised by factory owners around the canal and submitted reports to the department for further investigation.
“I have met with Rose numerous times and collected water samples for conceptual analysis to determine the cleanliness of the water flowing through the area and visited sites which were congested by overgrown trees and pollutants”, Sabelo said.
“Even though Sabelo made the effort to visit the various sites in question, we never received any report back from him and EMM continuously failed to service their sections of the canal causing more pollution in the segments we as factory owners are responsible for. We continuously end up cleaning and servicing EMM’s sections at our own cost to prevent the pollution entering our properties”, Rose stated.
Manager of the Department of Water Quality, Annamarie Maurizi, said the department only recently received reports of the problems and have already allocated teams to conduct clean-ups around the canal.
“The short-term plans include the cleaning of the canal banks of branches and rubbish that comes from the canal upstream. The progress on the long-term plans will be presented at the next meeting, which includes allocating more fixed teams to keep the canal clean and up to standard”, Annamarie said.
“In partnership with other factory owners, we have set a motion to establish an Environmental Community Forum to identify, prioritise and develop conceptual pollution control measures for the drainage area, as well as clearing sections blocked by pollutants and obstacles. As we work with property owners and associations, we can create a step-by-step strategy for implementing pollution control measures, including identification of funding sources to contribute to water quality improvement in the area”, Rose concluded.