Status of Our Water – Upper Olifants River Catchment?
A meeting was held on 30 March 2021 via Microsoft Teams to discuss the various issues that affect the catchment area of the upper Olifants River.
The meeting aims to discuss water management issues, collaborations, and any other issues during the year. No other meetings were held in 2020 after the 26 February 2020 meeting.
Many of the deliverables discussed in the February 2020 meeting were not achieved as DWS has not worked at total capacity.
According to the Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency’s environmental department, opencast coal mining covers approximately 4% of the surface area of the
Upper Olifants within the Mpumalanga Province landcover datasets produced in 2017. Since then, the extent of opencast mining would have increased,
and the 4% would have likewise increased as well. Middelburg Chamber of Commerce & Industry (MCCI) notes the application by Sing Consulting
in last week’s Middelburg Observer with concern.
If DWS has been working at Lockdown capacity since April 2020, MCCI notes with concern about the operational decisions made that will affect our livelihood and quality of life.
A questionable decision was Minister Lindiwe Sisulu’s decision to employ Cuban engineers. MCCI has had many successful collaborations with universities over the years;
one of our more long-standing collaborations is with Wits Business School. Why is DWS not utilising our universities with the environmental,
institutional and academic knowledge to deal with our specific water issues?
Water is a human right and essential for our businesses to thrive; we expect the DWS officials that manage our water to be well informed, knowledgeable and working at full capacity.