Description

In 1996, Nelspruit Town Council took the decision to involve the private sector in service delivery. This was taken just after the New Council came into power with a revised demarcation, which at that time increased the area of jurisdiction from 36,000 to 335,000 people.

Cascal focused the concession on improving and expanding service delivery in the townships.

In the first two years of operation ninety-one kilometres of new water mains were laid as well as eighteen kilometres of sewers. At the same time thousands of unregistered connections were found and many household and mains leaks repaired.

This has substantially reduced wastage and losses and the savings have enabled delivery of service to other areas not previously supplied.

Over six mega litres of water per day have been saved to date; over 8,000 broken meters have been replaced and a further 15,000 new meters have been installed to provide new house connections and formalise existing unauthorised supplies.

A new six million litre per day Sewage Treatment Works has been built in Matsulu replacing the ‘old pond’ at a cost of R8.3 million and the existing Sewage Treatment Works at Kanyamazane has been refurbished at a cost of R3.3 million. The water supply to Matsulu West has been changed from a ‘chlorinated river supply’ to a fully treated potable supply.

The Concession has created permanent jobs, employee numbers rising from 158 at the start to 250 today. The capital works has also created around 1,250 temporary jobs.

Local offices have been established throughout the concession area to provide easy access for customers to pay their bills, raise queries, deal with complaints and report leaks. A training centre has been established that runs in-house courses to raise basic skills and also provides training for the community in Computer Literacy, Business Skills development and Water Care.

Water Supplied/Demand
During the first two years of the concession the total water supplied into distribution fell from 66 Mld to 60 Mld, despite an increase of over 30% of customers supplied. This was achieved by reducing non-revenue water in Nelspruit and the surrounding townships by a faster response in repairing reported leaks, by fixing leaks on customer’s property and by tackling unregistered connections.

Revenue Collection
Revenue collection in Nelspruit town continues to be excellent. In both the townships and rural areas revenue collection was a major problem but is now steadily improving following service level improvements. 

Traditional political protests involved non-payment of water bills and a change in culture was required under the new democratic regime. Teams of specially trained staff, called ‘facilitators’ have worked intensively in the villages and townships educating, discussing and encouraging the regular payment of water and sewage bills. Using a variety of new and imaginative methods, ranging from formal meetings with elected representatives, to street theatre and sports sponsorship, the message of paying regularly is being accepted and payment rates are steadily increasing.