Thousands of Winterveld residents, who still use pit toilets, can look forward to flushing toilets in their households since the establishment of the settlement many decades ago.
This is all thanks to multimillion rand projects to erect a reservoir and install a water reticulation system, that are currently under way with a view to complete them in three years.
The projects were restarted this week after they were put on hold following the 2016 municipal elections, which saw the then ANC administration lose power in the City of Tshwane for the first time.
However, the projects were relaunched just days after the ANC was introduced into the newly-formed government of local unity in Tshwane to be part of the mayoral committee under Mayor Nasiphi Moya.
Housing and Human Settlements MMC, Aaron Maluleka and Finance MMC Eugene Modise, both from the ANC, this week announced the reinstatement of the projects during a ceremony hosted in the township.
Local councillor Donald Tsela, who was part of the ceremony, said the projects were long overdue and that they will come as a relief to township folks who have never had proper sanitation.
“This project is going to assist a lot because people in Winterveld have never had proper sanitation. It is going to assist a great lot because now people are going to have flushing toilets for the first time in their lives. They have been using the pit toilets since the establishment of the area,” he said yesterday.
He said the water reticulation project was started around 2014/2015, but it was stopped by the new government in Tshwane under the DA post the 2016 municipal polls, citing lack of funding.
Tsela said: “As a result of that, some people opted to connect illegally to the underground pipes that have already been installed.”
He explained that there are two projects under way; one is for building of a reservoir in ward 9 with the other one being the installation of water reticulation in ward 12.
The projects, he said, will be financed through the Upgrading of Informal Settlements Partnership Grant received by the municipality from the upper spheres of government.
Recently, Tsela made a call in a social media video clip that all projects that were stalled eight years ago must be restarted.
He said one of the projects that were stopped was a tarred road construction in Mabopane Block A.
“They said it was stopped because of a lack of budget but as we know that when a party is in power it has to take care of its own constituency. When you say there is no budget but you are able to implement a new project in Lynnwood - what are you saying?” he said.
According to him, township projects suffered under the previous administration because service delivery was prioritised for affluent areas.
As far as he knew the water reticulation will cost at least R300 million while the building of the reservoir will be R400m.
Owing to budget constraints, he said, about 1200 households will have flushing toilets after the completion of the water reticulation system.
“If we get money in the future we are going to install flushing toilets to all the houses,” he said.
Pretoria News