An order by the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) has put on hold the City of Tshwane’s efforts to cancel a contract to fix the Rooiwal wastewater treatment plant, which is at the heart of the Hammanskraal water crisis, notes a Mail & Guardian report.

Last month it emerged – through a media statement issued by Parliament – that the city cancelled a contract to urgently refurbish Rooiwal, which has been leaking untreated sewage into Hammanskraal’s water system.

The statement suggested the reason for the cancellation was the inability of the entities awarded the R291.4m contract to ‘deliver on work to limit substandard work’. But the joint venture awarded the contract refuted the city’s grounds for cancelling the contract, accusing it of misleading MPs.

It succeeded in obtaining an interdict against the city, preventing it cancelling the contract.

In an affidavit, Rudolf Schoeman of CMS Water Engineering – one of the three entities in the joint venture – said ‘the immediate implementation of the agreement is a matter of extreme urgency’. He noted that Hammanskraal, north of Pretoria, has been without an adequate source of clean water for the last decade.

In August last year, the Human Rights Commission, based on findings by the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research, declared the water in Hammanskraal unfit for human consumption. An analysis of samples found traces of E. coli and nitrates in the drinking water supplied to Hammanskraal residents.

The city did not file papers opposing the matter, but its spokesperson, Lindela Mashigo, said the case ‘is pretty much still in court’.

The court has given an interim ruling interdicting the city from cancelling the contract until the case is finalised, Mashigo said, pointing out the merits of the case still had to be argued.

Full Mail & Guardian report