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| History Developments Water Supplied/ Demand Revenue Collection Putting the Record Straight NRW - A 3 Year Success Story |
Nelspruit - South Africa
History - In 1996, Nelspruit Town Council took the decision to involve the private sector in service delivery. This was taken just after the New Council came into power with a revised demarcation, which at that time increased the area of jurisdiction from 36,000 to 335,000 people.
Developments - Cascal focused the concession on improving and expanding service delivery in the townships.
In the first two years of operation ninety-one kilometres of water mains were laid as well as eighteen kilometres of sewer main. At the same time thousands of illegal connections were found and many household and mains leaks repaired. This substantially reduced wastage and the savings have enabled water to reach higher areas of the network for the first time ever. Over six mega litres of water per day have been saved to date; over eight thousand broken meters have been replaced and a further fifteen thousand new meters have been installed to provide new house connections and formalise existing unauthorised supplies.
A new six million litre per day modern Sewage Treatment Works has been built in Matsulu replacing the 'old pond' at a cost of R8.3 million and the existing Sewage Treatment Works at Kanyamazane has been refurbished at a cost of R3.3 million. The water supply to Matsulu West has been changed from a 'chlorinated river supply' to a fully treated potable supply.
The Concession has created permanent jobs, employee numbers rising from 158 at the start to 250 today. The capital works has also created around 1250 temporary jobs.
Local Offices have been established throughout the concession area to provide easy access for customers to pay their bills, raise queries, deal with complaints and report leaks. A training centre has been established that runs in-house courses to raise basic skills but also to provide training for the community in Computer Literacy, Business Skills development and Water Care.
Water Supplied/Demand - During the first two concession years the total water supplied into distribution fell from sixty-six mega litres per day to sixty mega litres per day, despite an increase of over thirty percent of customers supplied. This was achieved by reducing non-revenue water in Nelspruit and the surrounding townships by a faster response in repairing reported leaks, by fixing leaks on customer's property and by tackling illegal connections.
Revenue Collection - Revenue collection in Nelspruit town continues to be excellent. In both the townships and rural areas revenue collection was a major problem but is now steadily improving following service level improvements.
Traditional political protests involved non-payment of water bills and a change in culture was required under the new democratic regime. Teams of specially trained staff, called 'facilitators' have worked intensively in the villages and townships educating, discussing and encouraging the regular payment of water and sewage bills. Using a variety of new and imaginative methods, ranging from formal meetings with elected representatives, to street theatre and sports sponsorship, the message of paying regularly is being accepted and payment rates are steadily increasing.