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According to Kwezi, the project is extremely labour
intensive and is aimed at assisting the community with
job creation. “We used unskilled workers to help with
the water supply and appointed a consultant to
supervise the process. This arrangement turned out to
be a win-win situation as community members were
taught how to provide water for themselves and
acquired much needed income and invaluable skills in
the process,” says Kwezi, adding that the feasibility
test was conducted in January 2004.
Due to its sizable scope, the project was divided into
two phases. The first half of the assignment entailed
the extraction of water from the river to portable
purification plants. Water was then stored in
containers and filtered through a chemical process.
The total cost for phase is R1 million. It started in
September 2004 and has since been completed in
February 2005.
Besides the usual project challenges,
environmentalists proved to be yet another barrier.
The team therefore had to submit a scoping report in
order to adhere to requirements. “Some of the farmers
fenced off a portion of their land, which meant that
we had to avoid this area completely. This led to
numerous public participation and site meetings and we
were watched very closely,” says Kwezi. |
The idea in phase two of the project is to build an
agri village. Agri villages are smallholdings where
community members are allocated small plots of land
for grazing and services. The cost for phase two is
estimated at R15 million and is likely to be completed
in 2007.
Most of MBSA’s projects are water and road related.
“We tend to concentrate on rural access roads, rural
water schemes and bulk water supplies. In all cases we
make use of Civil Designer and AllyCAD to fulfil our
design needs. We are also in the process of employing
more students so that we can teach them how to use the
program and thereby create additional backup staff for
projects.”
Another venture that MBSA is currently working on is
the Hota-Mbewula bulk water scheme project. “We have
just completed the preliminary designs for the water
scheme and submitted these to the client. The aim of
the project is to make water accessible to rural
areas, which means a greater commitment towards spring
water protection. This activity entails the collection
of water from mountain springs and the construction of
water purification reservoirs for reticulation
purposes. The process requires no power as the entire
procedure makes use of gravity. Once we have sized the
pipes, we make use of AllyCAD to complete the design.”
The bulk water scheme project was requested by the
Chris Hane Dristrict Municipality and is estimated at
a cost of R5 million. “Our appointment during this
initiative involved the preparation of a business plan
in accordance with DWAF requirements. This plan was
presented electronically via an online web-based
system. Other responsibilities on the project included
a feasibility study, the scoping report, the
construction license application as well as some water
availability testing. We submitted the business plan
in March 2004 and have since completed the project
designs,” explains Kwezi, adding that the construction
phase is due to happen in July 2005. |
