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Lesotho Highlands Water Project won’t fix Gauteng’s infrastructure and supply woes, experts warn

Lesotho Highlands Water Project won’t fix Gauteng’s infrastructure and supply woes, experts warn
Phase II of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project will be built at the confluence of the contamined Khubeli (left) and Senqu rivers. This place will be submerged at the completion of this project. (Photo: Pascalinah Kabi)
Bheki C. Simelane
By Bheki C. Simelane
28 Apr 2024
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Phase 2 of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, expected to be completed in 2028, could provide Gauteng with enough water for all. But unless municipalities fix their ageing infrastructure, additional supply won’t help.

South Africa’s government expected that Gauteng’s burgeoning population would require additional water sources and the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) was its answer to prevent a possible water crisis.

The LHWP Treaty was signed in 1986, but almost 40 years later Gauteng’s water supply faces long-term disruptions, and any potential solution is likely to come at a hefty cost.

With Phase 2 of the LHWP expected to finally be completed in 2028 after being beset by delays, the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) and its stakeholders are looking to implement a communications strategy to promote cautious water consumption and management. They’ve warned, however, that water supply could remain constrained even after the LHWP is complete.

“The minister of water and sanitation is coordinating regular meetings with Rand Water and the mayors of the Gauteng municipalities. In addition, officials from Rand Water and the Gauteng municipalities are having daily meetings to ensure improved coordination of responses to disruptions in supply,” DWS spokesperson Wisane Mavasa said about the response to the current challenges.

Gauteng municipalities buy most of their treated water from Rand Water, which abstracts raw water from the Integrated Vaal River System (IVRS) and treats it so that it meets drinking quality standards. Rand Water stores the treated water in bulk-storage reservoirs and pumps it into municipalities’ reservoirs. From there it is mostly gravity-fed to households.

The Lesotho Highlands Water Project


The R40-billion Phase 2 of the LHWP was meant to be completed in 2019, but delays repeatedly interrupted its progress.

“The project was delayed and the main contracts for the project were only awarded by the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority in October 2022. Construction is under way and the project is due to be completed by 2028,” Mavasa said.

The department describes the LHWP as a water supply project with a hydropower component (it supplies hydropower to Lesotho). It was developed as a partnership between Lesotho and South Africa and comprises several large dams and tunnels throughout Lesotho. South Africa pays Lesotho royalties for the water.

“A treaty was signed by the two governments in 1986, indicating that the project would be implemented in phases. Phase 1, consisting of the Katse Dam, Muela power station, Mohale Dam and 82km of tunnels, was completed in 2003. Phase 1 transfers 780 million cubic metres of water per annum into the IVRS,” Mavasa said.

The Phase 2 agreement was signed in August 2011 and is financed by the Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority (TCTA), which raises money on the market. The TCTA is a public entity falling under the authority of the South African minister of water and sanitation. The project is implemented by the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority, which is a public entity of the government of Lesotho. 

Phase 2 involves construction of a 165m-high concrete-faced rockfill dam at Polihali and a 38km concrete-lined gravity tunnel connecting the Polihali Dam reservoir to the Katse Dam, as well as advance infrastructure (roads, accommodation, power lines and telecommunications) and environmental and social mitigating measures.

Once completed, LHWP 2 will transfer an additional 490 million cubic metres of water per annum from the Orange (Senqu) River in Lesotho into the IVRS in South Africa.

“Upon completion of the Phase 2 of the project, 1.27 billion cubic metres of water will be transferred from Lesotho to the IVRS in South Africa per year,” Mavasa said.

Phase 2 of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project will be built at the confluence of the Khubedu (left) and Senqu rivers.(Photo: Pascalinah Kabi)


Reasons for the delay


The delay in Phase 2 of the project was owing to delays in negotiations with the government of Lesotho; the agreement for the project was only endorsed in 2011. 

The delay was further exacerbated by a change of government in Lesotho in 2013 when the new government asked to review the agreement.

Changes in leadership in the DWS – which has had five different ministers and 11 different directors-general (DGs) or acting DGs since 2013 – resulted in delays in decision-making and frequent changes in policies and strategies, which resulted in delays in providing the required approvals at the different stages of the procurement processes for the project.

Political interference


According to experts, political influence caused the delay in Phase 2 and corruption might have also been a major factor.

“The minister, then [Nomvula] Mokonyane, seemed to be at the centre of it,” said Dr Ferrial Adam from Outa’s WaterCAN project.

Writing in News24, Carol Paton has extensively described the allegations of political interference and corruption that have contributed to the delays.

Water resource management strategist Dr Anthony Turton said: “Phase 2 of the LHWP was delayed by Nomvula Mokonyane, who was minister at the time. She interfered in the procurement process by trying to bypass the Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority. Her intention was to swing the contract to a company that was linked to Nkandla. This delayed the project by a decade and is under investigation by the Hawks.”

Turton disputed that the change of government in Lesotho was one of the reasons for the delay.

“The change in [the] Lesotho government was not a factor in the delay. The good news is that the TCTA held firm, and managed to withstand this powerful attempt to hijack the process. This is consistent with an earlier case in which the TCTA successfully resisted major corruption by winning a legal battle that put a senior official of the Lesotho government into jail,” Turton said. 

Maintenance closures


In a media briefing in Pretoria on Friday, 26 April 2024, the DWS announced that the tunnel system from the Katse Dam would be closed for six months, from October 2024 to March 2025, for maintenance.

The department also sought to allay fears that the closure might affect the IVRS, saying the impact would be minimal. 

“The impact of the outage on the overall IVRS will be insignificant considering that dams in the IVRS such as the Sterkfontein Dam and others are relatively full. This means that the closure of the tunnel for maintenance will not result in any disruption of water supply to Rand Water, and to the municipalities in Gauteng and other provinces which are customers of Rand Water,” the department said on Friday.

“As a result of the tunnel shutdown, 700 million m3 per annum will be transferred in 2024, a shortfall of 80 million square metres from the normal annual transfer volume. After the shutdown period, the water transfers will be increased to enable the shortfall in transfers to be recovered,” it said.

It said the closure would not affect the ongoing construction of Phase 2 of the LHWP.

Growing demand


“Demand for water in Gauteng has grown rapidly, largely due to population growth and partly due to increasing leaks in municipal distribution systems,” Mavasa said.

Between the 2011 and 2022 censuses, the province’s population grew at an average 2% a year to 16 million, with municipal officials often citing the increasing population and demands on infrastructure as a cause of the water challenges.

“The demand-supply relationship for treated water in Gauteng is very tight and the system is vulnerable to disruptions caused by heavy load shedding, electro-mechanical breakdowns or theft of cables,” Mavasa said.

“Usually, such breakdowns would not have a noticeable effect on water supply due to the ability to draw on reserve supply capacity, but now there is no reserve supply capacity. Because the water is usually gravity-fed from municipal reservoirs to households, high-lying areas are worst affected by disruptions in supply.”

Water supply disruptions


In March 2023, Johannesburg experienced unprecedented widespread water supply disruptions, which were said to have affected more than half the city’s population. 

Read more in Daily Maverick: Unfolding water crisis in Johannesburg deepens as officials scramble for answers

“To reduce the risk of further water supply disruptions in future, Gauteng municipalities need to improve their billing and revenue collection and allocate increased funding to maintenance and to reducing leaks in their water distribution systems. There are also investments that they can make in pumps and reservoirs which can improve their ability to withstand disruptions.

Mavasa added: “The reality is that South Africa is a water-scarce country with limited sustainable water resources and amongst the top 30 driest countries globally.”

Water distribution infrastructure


According to the 2023 Blue Drop Report, most municipalities are not adequately maintaining their water distribution infrastructure. 

“Usually, breakdowns would not have a noticeable effect on water supply due to the ability to draw on reserve supply capacity, but now there is no reserve supply capacity. Because the water is usually gravity-fed from municipal reservoirs to households, high-lying areas are worst affected by disruptions in supply,” said Mavasa.

‘Careful management’


Rand Water’s total current supply capacity is 5,200 million litres of treated drinking water per day, and it is currently abstracting the maximum that DWS allows it to abstract from the IVRS. It will only be possible for Rand Water to increase abstraction from the IVRS after Phase 2 of the LHWP comes online.

Asked about water storage costs when the LHWP comes on stream, Mavasa said Rand Water has a R35-billion capital programme which is timed to result in substantial additional treatment and storage capacity becoming available when Phase 2 comes online.

“This includes the recently completed R3.5-billion augmentation of the capacity of its Zuikerbosch Water Treatment Plant by 150 million litres per day,” said Mavasa.

She added: “Even [with] the LHWP Phase 2 coming on stream, Gauteng’s long-term water consumption will require careful management, because there are limits to which further phases of the project or any other water transfer projects can continue to provide additional water to Gauteng at no hefty cost to the department.”

What the experts say


“The LHWP was originally conceived in the 1950s by Anglo American, which needed water to develop the Free State Goldfields. It was known as the Oxbow Scheme back then. The engineer was Ninham Shand,” said Turton.

“It has taken seven decades from conception to reach Phase 2, with multiple phases planned for the future. It will always be a strategic resource but it cannot fix the water supply problems in Gauteng because they are caused by institutional failure in the various municipalities,” he said.

“It’s municipal failure that has created the situation where almost half of the water delivered from Rand Water is lost to leaks.”

Johannesburg loses almost 40% of its drinkable water to leaks, theft or non-payment. 

Read more in Daily Maverick: Billions down the SA big-city revenue drain as 40% of purified water is lost to pipe leaks

In 2015, then president Jacob Zuma launched a “War on Leaks” campaign while Mokonyane was water and sanitation minister. Thousands of young people were meant to be trained as artisans to fix water leaks. In April 2024, President Cyril Ramphosa authorised the Special Investigating Unit to look into allegations of irregular appointments and payments regarding the failed programme. 

“Because municipalities are retailers of water, this equates to a multibillion-rand loss of revenue annually. The cause of the Gauteng water crisis is the functional collapse of the municipalities and not any delay in supply from the LHWP. To shift the blame onto the LHWP is a red herring,” Turton said.

Read more in Daily Maverick: As Rand Water warns of wider system collapse, Soweto and Johannesburg taps still dry

Adam added: “The LHWP alone will not fix our water woes. Yes, we need the increase in the amount of water to assist with bulk supply, given the growing demand in Gauteng. But at the same time, if we are not urgently fixing our infrastructure, then we are going to be in the same place.

“For example [the City of Johannesburg] loses 25% to leaks, at least 70% of [wastewater treatment works] are not operating well and are in a critical state. All of this can impact our water and thus it is not just about increasing the amount of water, but we need to be mindful of wastage and pollution.” DM

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