{"id":6690,"date":"2013-07-05T06:28:38","date_gmt":"2013-07-05T06:28:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=6690"},"modified":"2013-07-05T06:28:38","modified_gmt":"2013-07-05T06:28:38","slug":"cuba-to-be-paid-r6-billion-to-manage-south-african-ground-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=6690","title":{"rendered":"Cuba to be paid R6 billion to manage South African ground water"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Raul<\/a>
Raul Castro in the Cuban national assembly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The government has completed a groundwater strategy aimed at addressing water shortages across the country, Water Affairs Minister Edna Molewa said on Thursday.<\/p>\n

“[O]ur next step is to implement support mechanisms to help municipalities with technical expertise required to manage groundwater,” she told a service delivery summit in Rustenburg, according to a copy of her speech.<\/p>\n

Molewa had met Cuban prime minister Raul Castro in her attempt to source the skills required to implement the strategy.<\/p>\n

“We have agreed in principle that an agreement that will formalise this exchange of expertise will be signed before the end of the year.”<\/p>\n

The department was aware of the water quality problems some municipalities faced, and would continue helping them to improve their standards.<\/p>\n

Remediation programmes had to be undertaken to improve the water quality in the Hartbeespoort and Roodeplaat dams.<\/p>\n

Efforts were underway to train water management experts, such as mechanical and civil engineers, scientists, and process control technicians.<\/p>\n

Molewa said more than R734 million was needed to address the water infrastructure backlog in the North West.<\/p>\n

The Bojanala Platinum district municipality had the highest backlog requirement of R404.8m. Ngaka Modiri Molema was second with a backlog of R273.8m.<\/p>\n

Molewa said the water infrastructure grants were intended for areas without any safe drinking water.<\/p>\n

“The intention is to provide interim services to these communities while they are waiting for services that are in line with our RDP standards.”<\/p>\n

An amount of R6.2 billion over the next three years had been allocated to address problems in water infrastructure.<\/p>\n

The money would be spent on the 23 district municipalities identified by the president and Cabinet as needing help.<\/p>\n

North West was allocated a total of R122m over the medium-term expenditure framework period.<\/p>\n

Molewa said another problem affecting supply was the illegal use of water through abstraction and illegal connections. – Sapa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The government has completed a groundwater strategy aimed at addressing water shortages across the country, Water Affairs Minister Edna Molewa said on Thursday. “[O]ur next step is to implement support mechanisms to help municipalities with technical expertise required to manage groundwater,” she told a service delivery summit in Rustenburg, according to a copy of her … Continue reading “Cuba to be paid R6 billion to manage South African ground water”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[844,3705,2542,3707,497,3708,3706],"class_list":["post-6690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","tag-cuba","tag-edna-molewa","tag-ground-water","tag-hartbeespoort","tag-north-west-province","tag-roodeplaat","tag-water-affairs"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/castro_raul_cuba-national-assembly.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6690"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6693,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6690\/revisions\/6693"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}