The commissioning of the new Magalies Package Water Treatment Plant in Hammanskraal has been welcomed as a significant step towards resolving the area’s long-standing water crisis.

The facility, capable of purifying 50-million litres of water a day, is expected to bring clean drinking water closer to thousands of residents who have endured years of unreliable and unsafe water supplies.

The launch of the plant has been hailed as a milestone by national, provincial and local government leaders, who say the focus now shifts to ensuring that treated water reaches households through the metro’s distribution network.

President Cyril Ramaphosa said the next priority is to complete the reticulation process so that clean water reaches residents’ taps.

“We are now going to go on with the reticulation of water into the taps and homes of our people.

“Tshwane Deputy Mayor Eugene Modise and his team are now going to be hard at work to make sure they clean up all those taps that haven’t been working for the longest time so that this water we are now packaging and generating here can go to people’s homes.”

Ramaphosa stressed that residents should not have to wait much longer for reliable access to clean water.

“This must happen within a short space of time. We don’t want the people of Hammanskraal to be waiting for years and years.”

He described the commissioning of the plant as a great achievement and said government would continue prioritising water security.

Water and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina said the project forms part of broader efforts to improve water access in communities.

“We are handing over 67 decentralised water supply schemes whose source is a borehole. We drill a borehole and extract water from the borehole to the storage, which is 20 000 tanks per scheme.

“We take that water down with another pipe to the tap, and we purify that water. To us, this is a milestone because we are bringing dignity to people.”

Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi praised the cooperation between different spheres of government in addressing the province’s water challenges.

“The Ministry of Water and Sanitation respects intergovernmental relations. We meet every Tuesday and deal with water challenges in our province. What is important is that when there are differences, we meet immediately,” said Majodina.

Deputy Executive Mayor Eugene Modise assured residents that the Tshwane Metro is working to prepare the distribution network before clean water is released into homes.

“People thought this won’t happen, but today we are proud. On behalf of the residents of Tshwane, we want to thank you. We are committing now in front of the cameras that people of Hammanskraal will get clean running water, but for now, they must wait for us because we are flushing debris and dirt in the system, because it stayed for long without water,” said Modise.

While welcoming the commissioning of the treatment plant, the DA has warned that the investment will not achieve its full potential unless ageing municipal infrastructure is upgraded.

DA Tshwane spokesperson for Utilities, Councillor Themba Fosi, said the metro must urgently complete the installation of water meters and modernise the water distribution network to ensure the long-term sustainability of the project.

“The metro must urgently complete the installation of water meters and associated infrastructure throughout Hammanskraal. This will promote responsible water use, improve revenue collection, and ensure that residents are billed fairly and accurately for their actual water consumption,” said Fosi.

He argued that funding for critical pipe replacement projects had been redirected away from Hammanskraal during the 2025/26 financial year, leaving parts of the network vulnerable.

“Without upgrading the metro’s ageing water distribution network, the full benefits of the new treatment plant cannot be realised,” he said.

Fosi added that the DA had repeatedly warned that the metro’s infrastructure needed to be prepared before the plant became operational.

“We consistently called for ageing pipelines to be flushed, leaks to be repaired, valves and pump stations to be secured, and the distribution network to be upgraded to ensure that the metro was ready to safely receive and distribute clean water once the plant became operational,” said Fosi.

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