The Minister of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation, Lindiwe Sisulu has received progress reports on progress made in response to COVID-19 by her Ministry. These include water provision across the country and in schools as well as human settlements interventions.

Since the establishment of the National Command Centre at Rand Water, an agency of the Department of Water and Sanitation, almost 19 000 water storage tanks and 1299 water delivery tankers have been delivered. This translates to almost 90% delivery since the project started over the past few weeks.

Recently the Ministry has been given another task of ensuring that 2634 schools have access to water by the end of the month. As of last week, more than1500 tanks have been delivered to the affected Provinces with over 600 water tanks already installed.

“While we have made some strides over the past few weeks, there is still much more that needs to be done. The Departments of Water and Sanitation and Basic Education as well as Rand Water which is the implementing agent are fully committed to putting all measures in place to ensure safety of all learners is not compromised”, said Minister Sisulu.

“We are aware of the challenges of the tanks which have not been filled regularly; we are in discussion with our local municipalities to ensure these incidents are attended to”, added Sisulu.

Minister Sisulu also acknowledged that some challenges in schools include terrain and topography which result in tankers taking long to fill up the tanks. The distance between the schools, especially in rural areas, also results in tankers taking too much time to move from one school to the other.

Regarding human settlements, yesterday (Sunday), Minister Sisulu visited Alijah Barayi Integrated Residential Development Programme (IRDP) where the allocation of houses to deserving and qualifying beneficiaries has started. This will benefit mainly people from Khutsong and Kokosi informal settlements. Minister Sisulu and MECs as part of easing congestion in informal settlements, decided that completed houses must be allocated to qualifying beneficiaries.

There are other projects across the country which are being implemented in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19. These include the construction of 1000 structures in Mamelodi hostels and another 1000 in Duncan Village amongst others.

Enquiries: Please contact McIntosh Polela, Ministry Spokesperson on 079 563 1625 or McIntosh.polela@dhs.gov.za

Issued by the Ministry of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation
Govan Mbeki House
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