Mega projects with a value greater than R1 billion
WINNER
B
SMEC South Africa for the Provision of Water and Sanitation Services to Informal Settlements and Schools in eThekwini Municipality (Phase 3)
PROJECT TEAM
Client: eThekwini Municipality, Water and Sanitation Unit Consulting engineer: SMEC South Africa
efore 2007, the eThekwini Health Department was tasked with the rolling out of a project aimed at providing communal
ablution share blocks to informal settlements, aligning to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, particularly MDG 7. With infrastructure delivery not being the Health Department’s core business, service delivery was slow and deemed unacceptable. Thus, in January 2008, eThekwini Water and Sanitation issued a variation order to the existing large-scale AC Water Mains Relay Project to undertake a pilot exercise to efficiently and rapidly address the ablution requirements. basic human needs. This is demonstrated
the facilities once completed. Only local
and the approach proved to rapidly and
through the delivery of over 430 communal
suppliers and local labourers within the
effectively address the provision of water
ablution facilities to over 34 informal
affected communities were used, as far as
and sanitation services to the human
settlements, serving more than 118 000
possible, across all functions throughout the
settlements concerned.
people across the city.
implementation of the project.
The pilot exercise was a great success
Subsequently, Phase 2 of the Ablution
In totality, the project comprised the
Programme commenced in 2012 on a
R1.7 billion and continued over a four-and-
programme management and overall
larger scale, followed by Phase 3, which is
a-half-year period. The project was geared
programme governance and control for
currently under way, having commenced in
towards contributing to the municipality’s
Phase 3 of the sanitation programme over
August 2015.
social and economic agenda and
a period of four years. The project team
demonstrated this successfully through
consisted of more than 50 companies,
addresses the need to remedy the
the inclusion of labour-intensive
including a substantial entity development
severely adverse conditions experienced
construction methods and thereby the
component in both construction and
by the inhabitants of numerous informal
provision of economic opportunities for
design aspects, thus contributing to
settlements within eThekwini Municipality
the local community.
eThekwini Municipality and national
The Sanitation Phase 3 project directly
8
The overall project budget exceeded
through the provision of basic water and
This also included the recruitment of
sanitation facilities and in turn servicing
community members for supervision of
C E S A A o n E n g i n e e r i n g E x c e l l e n c e Aw a r d s 2 0 2 0
government’s drive towards radical economic transformation.
