rand water iar 2013 part 2

60 rand water integrated annual report 2012-13

Crucial environmental performance parameters for Rand Water

are:

WASTE MANAGEMENT

As a responsible waste generator, Rand Water disposes

of waste through a legally compliant service provider who

was appointed through a procurement process. Rand Water

produces general waste (paper, cans, glass, etc.) and

hazardous waste from operational processes.

The recycling strategy will not only focus on general waste,

but will also identify hazardous waste streams with recycling

or re-use potential and arrange for such respectively.

The graph below depicts hazardous waste that was disposed

of for the reporting period. Examples of hazardous waste

include fluorescent tubes, which are used for lighting of offices

and work areas. The tubes are removed by the waste service

provider from Rand Water, and transported to a treatment

facility where they are crushed and treated with a sodium

sulphide sulphur solution before disposal to hazardous landfill.

Our Scientific Services laboratory generates small volumes of

biological and chemical waste, from the testing procedures

used at the world-class facility, in ensuring that our potable

water meets the requirements of the SANS 241 standard.

The fabrication plant also generates bitumen waste, which is

removed from old pipe wrappings as part of the fabrication

process.

Hazardous Waste Disposed

Due to the expanse of our pipeline network and reservoirs,

Rand Water has sites stationed at strategic points within the

supply area; some located far from the cities and not serviced

my municipal sewage systems.

Rand Water subscribes to the ‘cradle to grave’ concept with

regards to waste management, and we therefore ensure

that we are aware of the eventual disposal of all our waste

streams, and ensure that this is done in a legally compliant

manner.

61rand water integrated annual report 2012-13

Water - abstraction, purification, distribution, water loss and catchment management

We take all reasonable care to keep water losses to a minimum

in the abstraction, purification and distribution networks of our

operations, and constantly keep records of water balances

to meet the commitment of water conservation entrenched in

our SHEQ policy. Any discharges are duly reported to the

Department of Water Affairs. Rand Water also aggressively

manages the Vaal Catchment Management Area in striving to

maintain the quality of its raw water supply. Any development

that may encroach upon a water resource is managed

sustainably and in line with the National Water Act of 1998.

Rand Water follows a procedure for the assessing of

environmental aspects and impacts, and institutes controls

to ensure that in the purification and associated processes,

environmental risks are identified and reasonably mitigated.

Air- dust fall-out

The aspect of dust fall-out is monitored monthly at the two

large purification works, Vereeniging and Zuikerbosch in

accordance with SANS 1929:2005. At our Zuikerbosch

and Vereeniging purification works, burnt lime is used as part

of the purification process. The lime is stored and conveyed

to the works from ‘lime plants.’ These areas usually produce

dust and therefore Rand Water monitors the dust generation

to ensure the safety of its employees as well as compliance

to the ambient air quality standards in terms of the National

Environmental Management Air Quality Act. Ambient nuisance

dust monitoring is undertaken at all other sites every two years

as part of the occupational hygiene surveys.

The obligation of dust suppression at our construction sites has

also been passed on to our contractors through Environmental

Management Plans which must be adhered to.

land- ecosystem management and land rehabilitation

All development footprints and servitudes are maintained to an

aesthetically pleasing level, and funds for rehabilitation after

construction activities are included in project management

planning by a dedicated rehabilitation department. Rand

Water strives to rehabilitate its footprint to a condition that

the site was before construction or to better it. In selecting

rehabilitation options, indigenous or otherwise beneficial

species are used for re-vegetation, and long term sustainability

of the survival of the ecosystem is addressed. Operational

procedures are in place for activities that may pose an

impact to the environment. Risk Assessments are conducted

on potentially high risk areas such as the Panfontein Landfill

disposal site, and rehabilitation options have been identified

in line with legal requirements.

Biodiversity resources- search and rescue, alien invader eradication

Rand Water practically implements measures such as

search and rescue activities for flora and fauna in areas

where development is earmarked, and before construction

activities. Red data species such as bullfrogs are re-located,

protected flora are ring-fenced or re-located, or nursed at

Rand Water’s own nursery. Monitoring and measurement of

key environmental aspects lead to programs such as the alien

eradication invader program which is in place for all major

sites and servitudes. Remarkable progress has been made

in alien eradication, and is of paramount importance to the

contribution to national water conservation measures.

Occupational health and Safety – OhSAS 18001:2007

In line with the continual improvement we have further

reduced the disabling injury rate (DIFR) target by 10.0% from

0.55 to 0.50 DIFR. The actual for the period 2012/2013

was 0.33 compared with DIFR of 0.37 for previous year – a

12% improvement from the previous year. The ultimate goal is

ZERO INJURIES! at the workplace.

This improvement is also confirmed by the reduced number of

claims from the Federated Employers’ Mutual Assurance, and

resulted in some reduction in premiums in real terms.

The Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) program

focused on the identifying unsafe acts and conditions.

The OH&S strategy focused on the task observation, mini-

hazardous identification and risk assessment, including

the improvement of incident investigations on all incidents

occurring at the workplace. Emphasis was also placed on

reporting all incidents especially near-misses. The OH&S

program elements delivered a list of risk control measures as

well as very effective action plans to prevent incidents from

happening.

Adherence to legislation is continually monitored and legal

updates are received and implemented through the corporate

SHE manuals to all the operating sites. Keeping up to date

with legislation is part of Rand Water’s SHEQ Policy which

includes self-regulation audits. This significantly contributes


to the maintenance of the OHSAS 18001:2007 SABS

certification conditions. Excellent audit results were obtained

regarding compliance to the applicable OH&S legislations.

This culminated in maintaining our OHSAS 18001:2007 the

second time since the new version was implemented.

The table and graph below shows the progressive

improvements Rand Water has achieved and maintained.

YeAR ACTUAL DIFR TARGeT DIFR

2005/06 0,41 1,00

2006/07 0,38 0,80

2007/08 0,54 0,80

2008/09 0,57 0,80

2009/10 0.53 0.80

2010/11 0.47 0.60

2011/12 0.35 0.55

2012/13 0.33 0.50

Occupational health Management

The occupational health management aims to maintain the

highest degree of wellbeing of all employees, and minimise

financial losses, through the maintenance of safety and healthy

workplace, targeted employee monitoring, effective remedial

actions to correct unacceptable deviations.

This is achieved through the provision of medical and

technical expertise to achieve improvements in the working

environmental, adaptation work to the individual worker, and

promotion of the health and welfare of workers. In this way

the services decrease the incidence of occupational injuries,

diseases, deaths and related disability.

The objectives are:-

To comply, as a minimum, with legal requirements

regarding the Occupational Health and Safety Act

No. 85 of 1993 and Regulations as amended.

To continuously identify and assess occupational and

environmental hazards, risks and implement effective

mitigation plans

To identify and manage adverse health effects arising

from workplace conditions (including compensation

and rehabilitation where possible)

To encourage and coach employees to maintain a

reasonable degree of general health and fitness to

work at all time

To achieve a high level of co-operation between

management and employees on health, safety and

environmental control programs.


Rand Water’s occupational health management program has

proven its resilience by the excellent performance that we

continue to maintain regarding occupational illness, diseases

and ergonomics related diseases.

This robust program is based on the following elements:-

Occupational health Risk Assessments

These are frequently done by line management, SHE

representatives and Occupational Medical Practitioners.

In this process health hazards are identified and mitigated

through well-designed mitigation plans. Employees and their

representatives are encouraged to report health hazards

immediately so that appropriate corrective actions are taken.

As Rand Water’s core business is about raw water abstraction,

purification using chemicals, pumping to distribute water and

water care process; the following hazards are present and

well managed:

Physical hazard namely noise and vibration

exposures

Hazardous chemicals substances for the treatment

and purification of water

Biological hazards – from water care process

Ergonomics from operation of valves, construction

and steel pipe fabrication.

Our robust occupational health program manages all these

hazards effectively. During the reporting period there were no

cases reported from these hazards.

Occupational hygiene Surveys

All areas within Rand Water are subjected to these legislated

surveys. The objective of these is to ensure that all areas

meet the legislated standards in term of illumination, noise,

hazardous chemical substances and ergonomics.

All areas in Rand Water meet these standards and where

deviations are identified corrective action is promptly carried out.

Occupational Risk Exposure Profile - OREP

All occupations within Rand Water have an OREP. This

document links the inherent job requirements with hazardous

exposures for the specific job or task and this forms the

minimum medical standard required to ensure the safety in a

specific position and reduce health risk.

Medical Surveillance Program - MSd

Rand Water continues to maintain a high standard of the

MSD across all its sites. This program involved targeted

medical surveillance based upon hazardous exposures and

a risk profile. This program is developed and guided by

the Occupational Medical Practitioner and executed by the

Occupational Health Nursing Practitioner.

This program begins when employees enter Rand Water to

when the employee exits the organisation. The emphasis is

placed on all those employees who are exposed to potential

hazards and risks namely drivers, hazardous chemical

substance and working at heights.

Ergonomics Program

Ergonomics is the evolving field within occupational health

and there has been increased awareness of its impact on

worker health and has been increased awareness of its

impact on worker health. Recently there has also been an

increased awareness of its impact on worker health of recent.

This involves stressors including: awkward postures, exertion

of forces, contact stress etc.


The occupational hygiene surveys results and medical

surveillances have shown that these are effectively managed

within Rand Water.

Quality Management Systems (QMS) – ISO 9001:2008

In compliance with the SABS, the organisation’s certification

body, bi-annual SABS quality management audits were

held. The successful maintenance of this ISO 9001.2008

certificate again confirmed the continuing maturity level of the

Quality Management Systems. In these SABS audits our QMS

was found to continuously comply with all ISO 9001:2008

requirements.

Document control and continuous improvement are some of

the benefits Rand Water is ripping from the QMS. Operating

manuals, procedures, safe operating procedures and forms

are of a high standard in the organisation.

All QMS manuals were reviewed in the reporting period

to incorporate all identified gaps and also in line with the

continuous QMS improvements.

Contractor Management

In line with our capital expenditure targets as well as in

meeting Rand Water’s Growth Strategy, a number of capital

projects are undertaken to expand and maintain the integrity

of our infrastructure, to meet the nation’s potable water and

sanitation demands. The Board, Executive Management and

all involved in these projects are committed to zero injuries,

zero degrading incidents as well as timeous delivery of these

projects.

Enforcement of legislation especially on Occupational Health,

Safety and Environment (SHE) matters is the critical part of the

project management. The legislation and our SHE requirement

has been integrated into the project management process

from the project initiation to project hand over.

Over-and-above the self-monitoring the contractors carry,

Rand Water also conducts its frequent SHE inspections to

verify and ensure that the contractors adhere to their SHE

plans. Deviations are reported to the project team and follow-

up done to ensure that the deviation is corrected.

During the reporting period, the number of contractor non-

conformances to the SHE requirement significantly decreased.

This was due to the strict monitoring of compliance to the

Project Occupational Health, Safety and Environment (SHE)

plans by the contractors. This is done by the contractors

themselves as well as the Rand Water risk personnel. Project

management teams are very vigilant on SHE issues forming

part of the site meetings and all SHE non-conformances are

handled there.

Improved SHE performance was experienced as the result

of being diligent with enforcement of SHE compliances.

Although, the year to date actual performance was 1.23 DIFR

better than the previous year 2.05 DIFR, improvements are still

required - see the graph below.

This safety performance for the construction industry is within

the acceptable limits. The trends showed that most of the

incidents came from excavations, man-machine interface and

inadequate and non-adherance to procedures where they are

adequate. Focus areas for improvement have been identified,

and they include writing, revising and carrying out regular

task observations on all critical tasks especially around the

excavation.

Rand Water - ContractorsDisabling injury frequency rates per 200 000 manhours worked

Risk Finance

Rand Water self-insures for high frequency low severity losses

by means of a self-insurance fund. This entails having large

Aggregate Deductibles. Risk transfer is effected for low

frequency but high severity losses by purchasing insurance

from the insurance market. Many forms of insurance are

purchased to protect Rand Water against various risks and

possible eventualities.

Rand Water’s environmental Management Services department is responsible for 4 main areas of operation i.e.

Site maintenance and landscaping

Water Wise gardening,

Authorisations (including Environmental Authorisations, Heritage Impact Assessments

and Water Use Licenses)

Environmental rehabilitation

Our intention is to ensure that we retain our impeccable record as an environmentally responsible organisation. This we are able to do through proactive environmental assessments and our appropriate responses to these assessments.


In this Integrated Annual Report we highlight some of the key

activities undertaken by the department during the year under

review.

AuThORISATIONS ANd REINSTATEMENT

We have obtained, managed and monitored environmental

authorisations on behalf of the organisation for the past five

financial years. In this time Rand Water has applied for

Water Use Licenses (WUL) in line with regulations as per the

National Water Act (No. 36 of 1998); Basic Assessments

in line with the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)

requirements of the National Environmental Management Act

(No.107 of 1998); as well as acquiring heritage permits for

the decommissioning of structures (60 years and older) as per

the directives contained in the National Heritage Act (No.

25 of 1999).

We are proud of our commitment in complying with legislation

outlined in the Acts in all our projects during the year under

review. In all instances we have acquired authorisation

from the relevant authorities prior to the commencement of

any project. This is in part due to our regular engagements

with both the Department of Water Affairs and Environmental

Affairs.

During the year under review, Environmental Management

Services worked at ensuring that all the environmental aspects

of Rand Water’s projects are prioritised without compromising

neither the organisation nor any other interested and

affected parties. Together with attaining the appropriate

authorisations, and adhering to compliance and monitoring

requirements when working on our projects, we have remained

committed to protecting the environment. This allows us to

again acknowledge the importance of biodiversity and our

obligations as a responsible corporate citizen.

During the year under review, we received environmental

authorisations from the Department of Environmental Affairs

(DEA) and the Gauteng Department of Agriculture and Rural

Development (GDARD).

Environmental authorisations received between 1 July 2012 and 30 June 2013

Description Date received Authority Reference No

R5 phase two-Vlakfontein – Mamelodi pipeline

12 June 2013 GDARD Gaut 002/13-14/ E0245

G37/H37 Pipes crossing Ekurhuleni 14 August 2012 GDARD Gaut 002/ 11-12 /E0244

B19 VG residue line 27 August 2012 DEA 14/12/16/3/3/1/445

Vaal Barrage structure refurbishment 08 August 2012 DEA DEA/EIA/ 0000177/2011

ZBK -raising of canal wall 08 August 2012 GDARD Gaut 002/10-11/E0184

H27, H16, H39, - Klipfontein pipeline 11 July 2012 GDRAD Gaut 002/11-12/E0175S4 Pipeline from the Van Dyk part of Rynfield extension

11 July 2012 GDRAD Gaut 002/11-12/E0175

K5 and K8 replacement of pipeline 21 November 2012 DEA 14/12/16/33/1/641

Vereeniging -residue pipeline line 21 June 2013 DEA 14/12/16/3/3/2/560

C25 Pipeline partial augmentation of the Zwartkoppies pipeline

21 November 2012 DEA - 14/12/16/3/3/1/640

during the year under review 6 Water use licences were granted by the department of Water Affairs.

Water use licences granted between 1 July 2012 and 30 June 2013

Description Date received Reference No

G37/H37 pipes intersecting Ekurhuleni 30 April 2013 14/12/16/3/3/1/649

C3 C5 C7 C10 C11 C24 Refurbishment of pipeline 25 April 2013 08/C22D/CI/2040

B17 and B18 Pipeline 16 July 2012 16/2/7/C221/E001

K5 and K8 Replacement of pipeline 23 November 2012 16/2/7/C212/W17

J8 Germiston Pipeline 27 November 2012 16/2/7/C212/W17

L17 Pipeline 23 July 2012 6/2/7/C212/W157


We acquired and monitored 78 authorisations over the past five financial years. Three Basic Assessments (BA) were class applications that involved a multiple of our projects grouped together.

Total authorisation received between 2008 and 2013

Year exemption for eIA.

GA for WUL WUL BA HIA Waste

2012 /13 1 2 6 11 0 02011/12 4 1 7 9 0 02010/11 2 12 1

2009/2010 0 0 0 8 0 0

2008/09 and before

0 0 0 11 0 3

TOTAL 78 5 3 15 51 1 3

During this period three projects were closed after adhering to the requirements of the authorisation and we have submitted closed

reports.

The monitoring specifications during this five year period have expanded as the requirements to monitor authorisations increased.

These are expected to further increase in order to meet the expected incoming demand.

Projects and authorisations monitored between 2008 and 2013

Year No of eCO’sNumber of authorisations been monitored with authorisation

Number of authorisations been monitored with RW generic eMP

2012 /13 7 31 4

2011/12 7 24 2

2010/11 4 10 1

2009/2010 4 6 1

2008/09 2 4 0

We monitor our environmental management projects and these are in turn audited by an independent auditor every three months.

During the year under review, 35 projects monitored by 7 Environmental Control Officers (ECO’s ) attained an average compliance

score of 90%. We have set 90% for ourselves as the minimum compliance target for compliance.

Environmental Rehabilitation

Rehabilitation ensures that Rand Water’s infrastructure is protected from effects of erosion and other environmental impacts.

When required the appropriate environmental related authorisations are obtained prior to us undertaking this work. It also requires

that all construction sites are rehabilitated, after our construction work is completed, to as close to the original condition as is

possible.

As part of our work we monitored, maintained and reinstated eroded land above and adjacent to Rand Water properties,

rand water integrated annual report 2012-13 69

reservoirs and pipelines. We implemented 27 rehabilitation

projects during the year under review covering an area of

approximately 447 086 m2. Our work included erosion

intervention, maintenance and rehabilitation after construction.

During the rehabilitation process, 1050 indigenous trees of

various sizes were planted, 192 alien plants were removed

and approximately 344 294 m2 of land was covered with

grass. At our Weltevreden Park reservoir, we recreated a

typical Highveld grassland ecosystem at the site, coupled with

the installation of owl nesting boxes and bat roosting boxes to

encourage improved biodiversity.

We also visit all previous erosion projects to ensure that no

further degradation occurs. All new erosion problems are

identified and these are added to the rehabilitation database.

A total of 31 erosion sites were undertaken during the review

period.

The cases of erosion were caused by either of the following:

Traffic on road or people (TR): this is the continuous

movement of vehicles and people across the Rand

Water servitude.

Activities relating to informal mining (M), occurring on

or adjacent to the Rand Water servitude.

Poor construction reinstatement (PCR): these are linked

to issues like insufficient backfilling after construction,

unlevelled areas and inadequate encasing of pipes

(at water course).This is mainly from historical aspects.

Poor rehabilitation (PR): refers to areas where there

was poor or no rehabilitation done after construction.

These are mainly of a historical nature.

Trees (T): refers to the effects of exotic trees invading

Rand Water’s servitude or properties.

Sinkholes (SI): refers to ground subsidence or collapses

linked to dolomitic areas or old mining areas.

Overflow (OF): refers to erosion caused by flow

channels of water from reservoirs

River Crossing (RC), Wetlands (W): refers to erosion

occurring on pipeline across rivers, wetlands or

drainage lines.

Storm Water (STM) refers to erosion cases caused by

storm water (mainly municipal).

Scouring (SC): refers to erosion relating to the scouring

activities

Causes of erosion between 2004 and 2013 above and

adjacent to Rand Water properties, reservoir and pipelines

The causes of the different erosion at each site were plotted.

These are depicted in the table below. The major cause of

erosion has been identified as a consequence of increased

storm water runoff. This can be attributed to the increase

in built up environment as well as increased “flash” rainfall

events. Only a single case has been recorded as being in a

wetland. Our deduction is that many of the wetlands-related

problems would have been recorded as river crossing.

Our pipeline network is divided into three regions namely

North (N), South (S) and West (W). The below table indicates

that most of the erosion is occurring in the Western (W)

region, followed by the Southern (S) region with 41 cases and

Northern region (N) with 39 cases. The district with highest

occurrence of erosion reported is Krugersdorp (19) followed

by Libanon (12) both these are in the Western district.

Erosion cases reported per Rand Water district

Site Maintenance

Site maintenance and development is undertaken regularly

at all of our six major sites as well as at a number of minor

sites such as reservoirs and smaller depots. Whilst the most

of the horticultural site maintenance is undertaken by our

permanent staff, selected work is outsourced and maintained

by maintenance contractors as well as a select number of

experienced staff appointed seasonally to assist with activities

on our maintenance schedule. All our sites are rated monthly

against set maintenance criteria.

In support of sustainable biodiversity, the battle against Invasive

Alien Plants (IAP) continued on all sites, and we continue to

remove and control the spread of these listed invaders on an

on-going basis. We replace these with suitable indigenous

alternatives. University of South Africa (UNISA) was appointed

to identify all IAP’s and produce a proposed plan of removal.

An IAP’s Removal Plan has been implemented for the control

of IAP’s and is monitored and reported on quarterly. All IAP

trees removed are chipped and processed into bark mulch for

use within gardens on site to conserve water and improve soil

quality and water retention.

During the year under review, 439 listed alien trees were

removed and 860 listed alien invasive shrubs were removed.

All these have been replaced with suitable non invasive plants.

We continue to advocate for the saving of water particularly

in households and gardens and have implemented a plan

to make use of recycled water within our nursery for the

propagation and growth of plants used on sites. The first

phase of this project has been completed with the installation

of three holding tanks coupled to a booster pump to run the

nursery’s irrigation. Storm water together with sample water

is currently channelled into retention ponds within the nursery

and this water is being filtered and boosted into the nursery

irrigation system thereby reducing the reliance on potable

water within the nursery.

Water Conservation

Our Water Wise brand was established as part of Rand

Water’s environmental brand in 1997, and promotes

water conservation as mandated by the Water Services Act

(No.108 of 1997) through its multiple portfolio interactions.

The EMS aspect of our Water Wise brand focuses on water

conservation awareness to the adult market within the Rand

Water supply area.

As the adult target market is quite large, it has been segmented

into the ‘green industry’ as these are high-end water users,

office and residential parks and the public. The past financial

year has seen the expansion of this target market to include

more golf courses, rural and informal communities, and ad-

hoc groups which include the elderly, prisoners and teachers

and ground staff at schools.

There are various messages that are appropriate for each

target market and these are communicated to each group

in various ways including research, displays, exhibitions,

demonstration gardens, awards and the continuous

development of educational material such as z-folders,

booklets and media articles.



Research Projects

During the year under review UNISA was re-appointed as the

tertiary institution to facilitate our collaborative environmental

research projects. The contract was awarded for a three year

period and seeks to assist in furthering water conservation

initiatives within Rand Water through projects such as alien

invasive plant identification and removal; and the development

of a rehabilitation manual for areas where Rand Water has

laid new pipelines or has undertaken repairs or maintenance

work to pipelines.

Projects such as the testing of grey water methodologies

for domestic application and water use in the home vs. the

garden have both concluded the majority of the research

component and this will be finalised in the next financial

year. Furthermore, numerous proposals for new projects

were reviewed and streamlined for commencement in the

2013/2014 financial year. This will greatly aid water

conservation efforts, retaining our position at the forefront of

environmental research activities.

Acid Mine drainage (AMd)

EMS undertook a research project to “Investigate Acid Water

Plumes, Decants and Intersects with Rand Water’s Potable

Water Pipelines, and Environmental Mitigation Thereof: Phase

I” was completed in December 2012 and a hazard analysis

and risk assessment undertaken. Many useful databases were

also developed which now form part of the Rand Water

GIS database. Preparations for the next phase have been

initiated for implementation in the next financial year and

will consider proposals for environmental mitigation involving

bioremediation.

Panfontein rehabilitation (36 month project)

One of our new planned research projects aims to investigate

phytoremediation options for the Panfontein sludge disposal

site. This is related to a legal requirement and the outcome

from a previously conducted risk assessment. The project has

been successfully registered with UNISA who have sourced

the appropriate experts as supervisors to undertake the

project.

Water Wise initiatives

Rand Water has implemented the following initiatives in

support of our Water Wise Programme:

Demonstration Gardens

These gardens are an ideal way of practically demonstrating

Water Wise principles and practices that can be

implemented in the garden. Currently, there is a garden at

the Delta Environmental Centre in Johannesburg which has

been upgraded to ensure that the garden remains lush and

attractive for its approximately 15 000 visitors a year. The

gazebo structure in the garden was also upgraded and new

signboards have been fitted to make it more user friendly for

tour groups.

The Water Wise garden at Walter Sisulu National Botanical

Gardens was also maintained attracting 219 000 visitors

during the year under review, of which 43% were previously

disadvantaged individuals and 46 % were recorded as being

between the ages of 20 and 35 years.

The demonstration garden at our Vereeniging Pumping Station

is used primarily to facilitate the educational campaign

conducted at this site. The garden has been extended to

incorporate additional space and will also incorporate a

sensory garden trail and vegetable patch irrigated by rain

water harvesting as some of the Water Wise practices

implanted. This upgrade began during the year under review

and will be completed in the next financial year.

Awareness Programmes

A marketing campaign between Water Wise and SANA

was also undertaken which distributed A1 ABS boards and

z-folders to 40 nurseries within our area of supply which have

focused on one drop plants to attract birds and bees to the

garden. In addition a booklet has been drafted to educate the

green industry on alien invasive plants.

A new area of development for our Water Wise team

has been to provide education and awareness to rural

communities, ground staff at schools, prisoners and the elderly.

This has provided an opportunity to develop appropriate

material for these new audiences. The team has made these

interactions very practical and tangible focusing on aspects

of vegetable gardening which is not only sustainable but also

psychologically rewarding. We have identified this as an

area for development.


Awards

Water Wise annually awards a trophy at two garden

design shows, the Lifestyle Garden Centre and at Garden

World Garden Centre. The aim of these awards is to inspire

landscape students and established landscapers, and the

public to incorporate more Water Wise principles in their

landscapes.

In addition, a trophy for the best Water Wise landscape

is also awarded annually to professional landscapers who

form part of the South African Landscapers Institute (SALI).

This award is presented at the South African Green Industries

Council (SAGIC) Convention.

An agreement on a new Water Wise award has also

been finalised, focused at targeting the golf industry for the

Most Water Wise Golf Course. This is a very exciting new

development as golf courses are known to be high-volume

water users and this proactive award necessitates a change

in behaviour towards improved water conservation.

Displays and educational material

We have developed a range of z-folder brochures, and

booklets which were distributed to the public at displays,

talks and events. In addition to the existing material, 3 new

educational z-folder brochures were created during the year

under review, i.e., One drop plants to attract birds, One drop

plants to attract bees and Water Wise Buildings, and the

Rand Water Guide to Water Wise Landscapes.

Furthermore, the Water Wise website has been updated with

all new material as well as new information on leak-fixing

and garden design. Monthly newsletters are distributed to all

major sites of the organisation for dissemination to all Rand

Water staff. The topics are all water conservation related. A

separate monthly newsletter is also sent out to the public on

water conservation. At the end of the year under review 544

subscribers were registered. Access to the website can be

obtained by visiting www.randwater.co.za and clicking on

the Water Wise logo.

A statistical analysis from many of the exhibitions indicates that

the general public is aware of the Water Wise brand. They

also find the displays very useful in communicating a Water

Wise message however; they would like more information

on water conservation. Another important key finding is that

awareness of the brand does not necessarily translate to a

water-saving behaviour. These findings are crucial to improve

the strategy of our Water Wise team.

During the year under review, the Water Wise team set up a

total of 18 displays and exhibitions which reached a minimum

of 708 505 visitors (refer to Table 5). Ultimately, a return on

investment of 0.43 per visitor was estimated. 69 advertorials

were produced in 22 different magazines based on specific

target audiences reaching a minimum of 5 828 114 readers

collectively for the year under review.

Intervention for creating water conservation awareness to adult market

Intervention No. of events/ advertorials

No. of people reached

Displays and exhibitions 18 708 505

Advertorials 69 5 828 114


managing our strategic assets

After decades of expansion to meet the challenge of infrastructural development and population growth, our infrastructure continues to be adequate to meet our customers’ needs in the areas we service


Asset Management is the systematic and coordinated activities and practices through which we optimally manage our assets, their associated performance, risks and expenditures over their lifecycles for the purpose of achieving its organisational strategic plan. It is a relatively new formalised way of conducting business

adopted by world leading infrastructure companies. It is a

holistic and integrative approach to the managing of assets

over its whole life, from inception to disposal. It is a strategic

discipline which enhances the quality of decisions made by

organisations with regards to their assets.

Typical results achieved by the effective implementation of Asset Management are:

Increases in customer satisfaction, sustainability, profitability, availability, reliability, maintainability, resilience, flexibility, compliance, efficiency, effectiveness, safety, etc.

Decreases in life cycle cost of assets, capital expenditure, operational expenditure, supply failures, asset failures, unplanned shutdowns, carbon emissions, etc.

We have adopted the Publicly Available Specification

for AssetManagement (PAS 55) as a framework for the

implementation of structured asset management. An asset

management policy, strategy and objectives have been

established. Current asset management status has been assessed

in terms of 17 key performance areas (KPA), and improvement

targets set out for each KPA.

Towards the end of the reporting period, approval was

obtained for the establishment of an Asset Management

Steering Committee (AM Steercom), reporting to the Portfolio

Integrating committee. The AM Steercom will consist of senior

members from all areas of the organisation, in order that asset

management will be treated as a busines wide imperative. The

Steercom will set and delegate improvement tasks under each

KPA, monitor progress and generally drive the implementation

and integration of asset management as a way of life for the

business.

A defining feature of utilities such as Rand Water is the size

and value of infrastructure or fixed assets in relation to annual

turnover, and the intention to maintain these assets indefinitely

to provide specified levels of service. It follows that proper

management of fixed assets is a key success factor of the utility

– supporting achievement of agreed service levels to customers

at minimum long term cost.

As Rand Water enters a more mature phase, demand growth

is projected to continue, but with a long term decline in annual

growth rates. Due to a period of rapid growth in demand,

much of the infrastructure capacity has been added in the

last few decades. As rates of growth slow, the rate of adding


infrastructure will slow, and the average age will increase.

Management of the existing assets will be planned in conjunction

with augmentation to meet demand growth.

In order to manage this growing, ageing asset base throughout

its lifecycle, certain initiatives are already in hand:

Completion of a comprehensive asset register, broken

down in terms of an agreed hierarchy of assets, and

containing sufficient detail to allow proper lifecycle

planning.

Condition and performance assessment of all assets

on a repeatable, multi-year schedule, with resulting

action plans for the maintenance and renewal of

the assets. These assessments will be undertaken by

multidisciplinary teams, where appropriate, in order to

obtain an integrated plan for the relevant plant.

Upgrading of standards for design, specification,

assessment and maintenance of assets.


Infrastructure

We operate a network of 3 500 km of pipelines, two large

combined pumping and purification stations (situated at

Vereeniging and Zuikerbosch), four main booster pumping

stations (Zwartkopjes, Palmiet, Mapleton and Eikenhof), 13

tertiary pumping stations and a number of enclosed reservoirs

and secondary booster stations. At least 60% of the value

of this infrastructure, estimated to be worth R80-billion at

replacement value, is located in our pipelines infrastructure.

Augmentation and Renewal Planning

After decades of expansion to meet the challenge of

infrastructural development and population growth, our

infrastructure continues to be adequate to meet our customers’

needs in the areas we service. This is in itself remarkable

considering that in 1965, we were supplying 1 000

Megalitres a day (Ml/d) and that demand has increased

four-fold to 4 000 Ml/d.

Rand Water is ensuring it is ready for the demands of 2030

and beyond by focusing on infrastructure renewal and

development. We work on a 20-year planning horizon,

driven by forecasts of future water consumer needs and the

need to maintain the capacity of existing infrastructure. This

involves analysis of trends and usage patterns, assessment of

condition and performance of infrastructure, compliance with

evolving legislation, and discussions with various stakeholders

on their expectations. Planning and management of assets is

undertaken on the basis of supply systems, matching system

capacity with projected customer requirements.

Rand Water primarily draws raw water from the Vaal River

System. Two river stations – Zuikerbosch and Vereeniging –

abstract, purify and pump into the network some 98% of the

water supplied to our customers. About 90% of this water is

further pumped by four primary booster stations situated on

the southern side of the Witwatersrand ridge. The portions of

the network supplied by each pumping station are indicated

by colour coding all significant customer supply points on the

map as follows:

Zuikerbosch – Vereeniging direct (brown) – southern

Gauteng and northern Free State (localised), in

addition to supply to all booster pumping stations.

Eikenhof (pink) – western and north-western

Johannesburg, the West Rand and greater Rustenburg.

Zwartkopjes (green) – central Johannesburg and a

high-lying portion of the East Rand.

Palmiet (blue) – eastern and northern Johannesburg,

large parts of Tshwane, and western portions of

Ekurhuleni.

Mapleton (yellow) – central and eastern parts of

Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, and selected areas in

Mpumalanga.

Projected growth in water demands

Our municipal customers account for more than 90% of total

demand, with direct supply to mines making up most of the

balance. Periodically, we consult with major customers and

update projections of demands on the network. The latest

forecast indicates a continuation of the trend of gradually

decreasing rates of annual demand growth. Rand Water now

supplies a predominantly urban, domestic consumer base.

Population growth is the main driver of demand growth,

with the economy having a secondary affect. Worldwide,

urbanising populations exhibit reduced rates of population

growth. In South Africa, this effect is magnified by the impact

of AIDS on fertility and mortality rates. Demographic studies

undertaken on behalf of Rand Water, confirm this trend.

Total average daily demand on our network is projected to

increase from the current demand slightly above 4000 Ml/d

to around 5500 Ml/d in 2030. This gives an average rate

of demand growth of 1.75% per annum over this period.

The three metros supplied by Rand Water –Johannesburg,

Ekurhuleni and Tshwane – consume 75% of water supplied

from our network.

Projected peak demands by main system

Through the hydraulic modeling process, forecast demands

are added at each significant supply point. This allows the

estimation of peak flows in each pipeline, and peak demands

on each of the pumping stations. Results for each of the

major systems are given in the table below (quoted capacities

exclude standby units).


Peak demand forecasts and augmentation dates for main pumping stations

StationInstalled capacity

(Ml/d)Available capacity

(Ml/d)

Proposed additional capacity

(Ml/d)

Proposed year of augmentation (first phase)

Projected peak day demands (Ml/d)

2020 2025 2030 2035

Primary pumping

Zuikerbosch 3900 3400 1200 2016/17 4400 3900 4400 3900

Vereeniging 1400 1200 Nil N/A 1200 1200 1200 1200

Clarens Scheme Nil Nil 1000 (2000) 2025 Nil 1000 1000 2000

Booster pumping

eikenhof 2000 2000 Nil N/A 1470 1610 1750 1880

Zwartkopjes 800 700 200 2015 760 780 840 880

Palmiet 1870 1870 600 2015 2000 2190 2380 2570

Mapleton 960 800 300 2017 990 1080 1180 1270

Capital Expansion Programme

The last Rand Water augmentation was undertaken during

the 1990’s and this was referred to as the 92 scheme, this

programme increased the design capacity from 4500 Ml/d

to 4 600 Ml/d. The current 2009 Additional Water Supply

Scheme and general capital programme is aimed at ensuring

security of water supply, both quantity and quality of water

supplied, and the first phase will increase design capacity

to meet future demand. This programme is a combination of

augmentation and renovations. We plan to spend R14 billion

over the next five years on our water supply infrastructure, 2013

to 2018. Of this amount, 60% is allocated to augmentation

schemes, with the remaining 40% allocated to renovations and

upgrades of existing infrastructure.

Some of the major projects completed in the financial year 2012-13

Despite the persisting global financial strain, we have continued

to improve our capital expenditure performance year on year

and the completion of projects. The Rand Water capacity

expansion programme has shown remarkable progress in

the past few years of projects implementation. The significant

number of commissioned projects is evidence of the progress

that has been made so far. The completion of projects has

ensured continued assurance of securing of water supply.

Completed projects during the year under review are listed below;

BG3 raw water pipeline augmentation

The newly completed BG3 pipeline increases supply to match

the full capacity of the canal with the Vaal Dam at its lowest

operating level. The BG3 is a key piece of infrastructure in

the supply chain, ensuring that sufficient capacity is available

to meet the on-going population and economic growth of the

region in South Africa.

Construction of the BG3 pipeline – approximately 8600 m

of 3520 mm outside diameter spiral welded steel pipeline

supplying raw water from Vaal Dam to the Zoekfontein Control

Works, includes excavation, loading, unloading, blasting, pipe

laying and joining of steel pipes, backfilling, reinstatement and

construction of valve chambers, including all pipeline associated

infrastructure.

The BG3 pipeline has been installed alongside the BG1 and

BG2 in the same servitude on the eastern river bank of the Vaal

River.


The BG3 Pipeline will serve several purposes:

Primarily, it augments (increases) raw water capacity

to Zuikerbosch by up to 2100 Ml/d which

accommodates the region’s growth water demand

projected to 2030.

Secondly, by duplicating the BG2 (existing line), the

BG3 allows the BG2 to be taken out of service for

crucially needed maintenance or renovation works.

Thirdly, if the Vaal Dam drops abnormally low, the

BG1, BG2 (both existing pipelines constructed in

1964 & 1980 respectively) and BG3 will be capable

of supplying Zuikerbosch demand. As of 2011, if

the Vaal Dam drops below 85% Zuikerbosch cannot

supply more than 3700 Ml/d which puts the overall

supply to the region at risk.

Bloemendal pumping station to Delmas pipeline, also referred to as N10

In October 2008, Rand Water, together with the Department

of Water and Environmental Affairs, the Mpumalanga

Provincial Department of Provincial and Local Government,

the Delmas Local Municipality entered into an agreement

for this 38km bulk water supply to Delmas. This project was

a response to water challenges Delmas experienced in the

years between 1993 and 2007.

The Service Level Agreement was signed in 2010 for Rand

Water to implement the project. The project construction

started in November 2011 and completed the project in

July 2013. The project included the 610mm 38 km pipeline

and a 10 Mega-litres reservoir at the midpoint to between

Bloemendal pumping station and Delmas.

The designs for the water infrastructure, including piping and

reservoirs, were done` in-house by our design engineers.

The project management was done fully by Rand Water,

and the project was completed on time and within 5% of the

approved budget.

Vlakfontein Reservoir to Mamelodi pipeline augmentation

This project strengthens an existing route, supplying under

gravity from Vlakfontein Reservoir, north of Benoni, through to

eastern and central areas of Tshwane Metro. In addition to

growth in existing areas of supply, the pipeline supports supply

to an extended area of service, including the Mpumalanga

Western Highveld Region discussed above.

Installation of the first leg, a 1500 mm diameter pipeline

from Vlakfontein Reservoir to the southern boundary of the

Rietvlei nature reserve, south-east of Pretoria, is complete and

in commission. This leg supplies growth along the route, and

provides adequate supply and pressure to the major Garsfontein

Reservoir zone of Tshwane Metro. The Bronberg Reservoir -

Mamelodi Extension is currently in the design phase and is

expected to be rolled out in 2014.

Renovation of B7 Zuikerbosch to eikenhof Pipeline

The 45km long B7 pipeline of 2100 mm diameter includes

some 25 Km of prestressed concrete pipe. This concrete

portion has reached the end of its 40 year design life.

Detailed inspection and assessment indicated that cracking

and breakage of reinforcing steel wires was sufficiently

advanced in some sections to warrant urgent intervention.

The resulting project is close to completion, and includes:

Steel internal slip lining of 10 km (effectively installing

a new pipe inside the existing shell) to extend useful

life by at least 50 years

Upgrading of all joints to prevent leakage due to pipe

movement and deterioration of joint materials

Internal repair of pipe sections not requiring slip lining

General upgrading of ancillary items such as valves

and chambers

H14

Construction commenced in May 2010 and was completed

in May 2013. The scope of work included the following:

Earthworks and installation of the 8900m of 1000mm

diameter steel pipeline

Construction of air, scour and control sluice valve

chambers

Valves installation

Pipe jacking

Environmental rehabilitation

Planned projects in progress

The planned projects are listed under two main categories,

namely:

Augmentation projects that have the primary purpose of

increasing the capacity to meet growth in demand and

area of service; and


Renewal projects, including upgrade, rehabilitation and

replacement projects that have the primary purpose of

maintaining existing capacity to supply both quantity and

quality.

Some projects, particularly involving pipelines, will serve a dual

purpose.

The capital expenditure plan incorporates capital investment of

R9.4 billion for augmentation, R6.6 billion for renewal, R5.8

billion for growth projects outside the core business and R0.3

billion for moveable assets for the period 2013/18.

Analysis of the Capex Breakdown in ZAR million

2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 TOTAL Bulk Water Supply System 1,636 2,524 2,552 2,477 2,339 2,348 12,240

Augment Infrastructure Projects 913 1,501 1,653 1,589 1,448 1,364 7,555

Existing Augmentation 700 760 664 1,044 1,080 740 4,288

New Augmentation 213 741 989 545 368 624 3,267

Rehabilitation Projects 723 1,023 899 888 891 984 4,685

Existing Rehabilitation 193 128 61 18 30 39 276

New Rehabilitation 530 895 838 870 861 945 4,409

Growth Projects - 713 1,828 1,678 389 139 4,747

Movable Assets 70 70 50 50 50 50 270

TOTAL CAPeX 1,706 3,307 4,430 4,505 3,078 2,837 17,257

Analysis of the top five projects within the 5 year period

Capital Project estimated Cost (R’m) System Augment/Renewal

(R’m) Renewal

Zuikerbosch Scheme 2,120 Zuikerbosch Augment

ZB to Palmiet pipeline 1,280 Palmiet Augment

Palmiet to Klipfontein pipeline 375 Palmiet Augment

Palmiet engine room 3 349 Palmiet Augment

R5 Vlakfontein – Mamelodi 343 Mapleton Augment

EXPANdEd AREA OF SERVICE

Western highveld Region

Rand Water was appointed as the implementing agent for the

Mpumalanga Western Highveld Region by Department of Water

Affairs and Environmental Affairs (DWAE). Our appointment is

for the management, operation and maintenance of the water

supply services in the southern part of the Western Highveld

Water Supply Scheme. This also includes the Kungwini bulk

water supply services in the area of Bronkhorstspruit, Ekangala

and Ekandustria. Our involvement in the short term support

intervention has positively impacted the following aspects of

bulk potable water services provision:

• Water quality

• Water supply management

• Equitable distribution to cross-border communities

MAJOR CAPITAl PROJECTS

Expenditure occurred on more than 300 projects during the

financial year. However, the top five projects accounted for

more than 40% of total capital expenditure. These five projects

involve augmentation, upgrading and extension of pipeline

routes, reflecting the importance and value of pipelines as a

proportion of our total infrastructure.

Top five projects in terms of capital expenditure in

2012/2013

Supply to Palmiet is provided only from Zuikerbosch river station,

along two routes. The first route consists of the B4, B6 and B10

pipelines. The second route involves the B7 and B12 pipelines,

running from Zuikerbosch to Zwartkopjes Farm (west), and

feeding the B13 running to Palmiet. At current rates of demand

growth, the combined capacity of these pipeline routes will be

reached by 2015.


The B4, B6 and B10 pipelines are all pre-stressed concrete

(PC) pipelines, which have been identified as high risk

category pipes, potentially requiring significant refurbishment

work in the short to medium term. First stage renovation of

the B4 pipeline has been completed, but increasing demand

will make it more difficult to take these lines out of service

for renovation. Installing a new steel pipeline will provide a

window of opportunity for such work, and reduce the risk of

supply failure along this important route. This route is cross-

connected to the Zuikerbosch – Mapleton supply system by

the short B9 connecting pipeline, at a location known as

Slangfontein. Surplus pipeline capacity after augmentation

of this route can be used to increase this inter-system support,

and delay augmentation of the direct Mapleton supply route.

REPlACE C6/C17 PIPElINES - ZWARTkOPJES SySTEM REPlACEMENT ANd AuGMENTATION

Steel pipeline – 26 km x 1400 to 900 mm diameter.

The Zwartkopjes – East Rand system supplies Katlehong –

Natalspruit, Boksburg Central and Rand Water’s Benoni

Reservoir. Two of the pipelines (the C8 and C17) branch

off from the main route and, in addition to certain local

connections, join and support the Mapleton – Brakpan

system, which operates at lower pressures.

The C6 and the first 10 km of the C17 was installed in the

1920’s and 1930’s. They are 600mm diameter or smaller,

with lead caulked joints and a bitumen paint coating – typical

of the available technology in those years. The normal method

of renovating lead-jointed pipes is to apply cement mortar

lining after welding internal wrapper plates across the joints

to prevent movement and leakage, and to provide electrical

continuity for cathodic protection systems. These pipelines

are too small for this process, and are smaller than desirable

from a hydraulic perspective, again due to the technology

limitations at the time (pipe mills could not roll larger diameters

with thicker walls). Preventing joint movement and leakage

is also important where these pipes run through dolomitic

ground conditions.

Under this project, these pipelines are removed, and a larger

diameter pipeline is installed between Zwartkopjes and

Leeuwpoort depot. The new pipeline is sized to replace

the capacity of the old pipelines to be removed, as well

as allowing for growth in water demand from the system to

beyond 2020. The proposed pipeline is stepped down from

1400 mm diameter at Zwartkopjes, to 900 mm diameter at

Leeuwpoort. The scope allows for recovery of sections of

pipe for possible use in by-pass pipework or lower pressure

systems elsewhere, depending on loss of wall thickness due

to internal and external corrosion. Project planned to be

completed in this financial year.

upgrade of N7, N8 pipelines from Secunda to Bethal

This eastward leg of the our infrastructure supplies into

Mpumalanga. The portion from Secunda to the termination at

Bethal was acquired from the municipality, and contains small

diameter asbestos cement pipes. These are being replaced

with steel pipes to increase capacity and improve reliability.

An interesting feature is that much of the pipe is recovered

from elsewhere in the network, having become too small for

current needs. Pipe still in acceptable condition is refurbished

and used in this relatively low capacity part of the network, at

substantial saving in comparison to the purchase of new pipe.


Brakfontein to hartbeespoort dam Scheme

This project will initially strengthen the supply to Diepsloot

and environs. Subsequent stages supply Mnandi and other

growth areas between Midrand and Pretoria, and will extend

the regional bulk supply to areas around Hartbeespoort

Dam.Installation of the first portions of the scheme (H33,

H34 pipelines) is complete, and is assisting supply to the

Diepsloot supply zone of Johannesburg Water. The system

extension along a new route towards Hartbeespoort Dam

(H35 pipeline) is close to completion.

Pipeline renovation

Less than 10% of Rand Water’s 3 500-km pipeline network is

constructed out of concrete pipes, the rest of the pipelines are

manufactured from steel. We will renovate or replace all the

concrete pipelines – about 200 km – with steel pipes where

the condition is not acceptable in terms of risk. Thereafter an

ongoing repetitive condition assessment will be carried out

and the exercise repeated, where necessary. The latter are

more suitable than concrete pipes, as steel tends to develop

a leak, rather than rupture, while concrete is more likely to

rupture and cause potential damage to people and property.

Some of Rand Water’s pipelines are 70 years of age,

the overall majority are between 15 and 50 years old.

A programme of refurbishment, renovation and replacement

is therefore essential. A range of techniques have been

employed, including aerial surveys of its pipeline network by

use of thermal remote scanning technology. Through thermal

remote sensing, leaks in large diameter pipes are detected.

This allows for early repairs and helps to reduce water wastage.

During the survey, digital seamless maps are produced and

geographically modified for use in government or council

Global Information System (GIS). High-resolution infrared

images are produced as well as high definition video output

linked with Global Positioning Systems (GPS) information.

Pipeline Renovation Planning and sample Projects

All pipelines have been ranked in terms of level of risk,

including such factors as age, materials of construction, joint

type, and dolomitic ground conditions. It is planned to carry out

inspection and assessment of 1500 km of pipe with the highest

ranking over the next 5 years. This will feed into the pipeline

renovation programme, as the focus of capital expenditure

moves from augmentation to renewal. The renovation of the

2100 mm diameter B7 pipeline is in progress. The phased

reconditioning of the 1800 mm diameter O2 pipeline is an

ongoing project. The 32km-long pipeline, which runs from

Alberton to Kempton Park, has taken two years to recondition

because of the length of the pipeline and the need to avoid

operational disruption, particularly at peak demand periods.

The project involves inserting steel lining into five kilometres of

the O2 pipeline, as well as fixing and renovating the joints

and valve chambers.

Installation of Cathodic Protection System on the Rand

Water pipeline network

The Rand Water pipeline network is exposed to corrosion

from stray current sources, corrosive soils, and microbiological

corrosion, that results in metal loss and threatens the integrity

of the pipeline network. It is therefore necessary that corrosion

mitigation measures be put in place for the prevention of

these attacks from corrosion. The implementation of Carthodic

Protection (CP) System is per geographical regions of

the pipeline network and the pumping stations. Cathodic

Protection and Corrosive surveys have been completed in the

entire Rand Water pipeline network as well as the pumping

stations. The Installation of CP at Zwartkopjes, Zuikerbosch

and Vereeniging and the regions is in progress and the

anticipated completion date for the entire network is 2014.


Rand Water has an impeccable reputation with regard to the provision of safe and wholesome drinking water and intends to sustain this achievement into the future. Our activities are an indication of our commitment in this regard and our customers can rest assured that the quality of the water that they receive on tap is safe for consumption. Rand Water has always placed a very high premium on the quality of its water and as such we have again provided water that

met both the national drinking water standards as well as the World Health Organisation’s drinking water quality guidelines.

To ensure that Rand Water is able to sustain this performance into the future, we not only rely on compliance monitoring but have

implemented an extensive integrated water quality management plan which promotes multiple quality assurance checkpoints (multi

barrier approach) throughout the entire water supply chain. This risk based system is able to pro-actively identify challenges and

also employs pre-defined corrective protocols for those determinants that have the highest probability of failure.

The principle of “healthy catchments = healthy water” has been adopted by Rand Water and incorporated into the Water Quality Safety Plan in the form of a “catchment to tap” approach. This approach spans the concerns and health of those consumers who drink the water supplied by Rand Water as well as the people living in the catchment who also depend on the source water for their livelihood.

As the “Deterioration in raw water quality” has been identified as the No. 1 risk to Rand Water during the year under review, we

endeavour to work closely with communities, stakeholders and regulators to identify possible risks to water quality and strategies

to address these risks.

To circumvent the problems intrinsic to ad hoc monitoring, we have over 500 on-line monitoring devices, installed at key points

throughout the water supply chain, capable of providing real time water quality information required for optimum functioning of our

water treatment systems whilst enabling ongoing water quality verification.

Deteriorating raw water resources have also received attention and on-line monitoring devices were installed at key points within the catchments from which we derive our drinking water to provide real time information. In order to remain abreast of activities that may impact our source water quality, Rand Water also participates in all available catchment and national forums during which it lobbies its interest where water quality is compromised. An informed customer base is also important to Rand Water and in this regard the www.reservoir.co.za website, which provides a wealth of water quality related information in respect of both drinking and source water quality, is maintained for public information. The website is extensively used by the public, research institutions, consultants and water quality managers.

Rand Water has an impeccable reputation with regard to the provision of safe and wholesome drinking water and intends to sustain

this achievement into the future. The activities described above are an indication of its commitment in this regard and its customers

can rest assured that the quality of the water that they receive on tap is safe for consumption.


SOuRCE WATER QuAlITy

Our supply area, driven economically by the Vaal River,

generates 60% of South Africa’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP),

which is equal to 10% of the whole Continent’s GDP. The Vaal

Dam is the hub of water supply in the Vaal River System. Rand

Water, Sasol (Sasolburg), Eskom and Mittal Steel as well as

downstream users such as irrigators, Midvaal and Sedibeng

Water are supplied or supported with water released from Vaal

Dam.

The quality of the region’s water resources came under the

spotlight during the year and received extensive media attention.

This was as a result of a number of incidents and discoveries

made that caused major concerns about the efficiency of

the management structures and interventions related to water

resources.

The decanting of acid mine drainage from various mines

in the Johannesburg region again received attention in the

media. Numerous television and radio programmes covered

the matter. The decanting of this water presents serious threats

with respect to possible sinkhole formation and obviously

the pollution of receiving streams. The Cradle of Humankind

World Heritage Site is also under threat. Fortunately, the

implementation of short-term solutions are on schedule.

This involves the neutralisation of the water in all three

basins and discharging the saline water into the Klip-and

Blesbokspruit rivers respectively.

An additional concern with respect to acid mine water is the

rapid establishment of new mines and the high number of

pending mining applications for new coal mines to satisfy

Eskom’s increased demand. Most of these mines are in the

upper reaches of the Vaal River’s catchment, and will destroy

the lifeline of Rand Water’s consumers if pollution cannot be

curtailed.

Sewage contamination remains a major concern, apart from

the treatment works operated by the larger metros, practically

none of the works in the catchment area are operated at a

level where effluent of acceptable quality is discharged into

the environment.

Catchment Management

Source Water Quality staff actively engage with stakeholders

at Catchment Forum level to address water management

issues. Water quality reports are produced and discussed,

highlighting both “hot spot” issues as well as cumulative trends

in water quality. These reports are also shared with DWA and

are published on the www.reservoir.co.za website.

Rand Water actively participates in the process of moving towards the establishment of the Upper Vaal Catchment Management Agency (CMA).

This process continues even in the absence of the establishment

of the upper Vaal CMA, as Rand Water views the protection of

its source waters as vital to its ability to provide an uninterrupted

supply of world class potable water.

Eutrophication and the Vaal Barrage

Although there has been a general improvement (due to the

engagement of Rand Water staff with stakeholders), spillages

of raw sewage continued to bombard the Barrage reservoir

with high levels of nutrients and faecal bacteria.

Although an improvement in the effluent quality from some


of the sewage treatment plants has already been observed,

spillages still arise from pipeline bursts and pump failures.

The improvements can be ascribed to Rand Water’s vigilant

monitoring and reporting of spills, combined with the “Green

Drop” assessment by the Department of Water Affairs. Rand

Water’s Bulk Sanitation department has also been appointed

as management contractors by the Emfuleni municipality, to

manage the three sewage treatment works in the area on its

behalf.

Compliance to effluent standards has increased significantly,

and the fact that action is being taken as a result of public

pressure, is comforting. It is also an indication that awareness

levels among the general public are fairly high, and that

people are making use of forums such as the catchment

forums, and information made available by us, to inform and

educate.

Monitoring

The rivers and dams in the catchments of Rand Water’s

area of interest are extensively monitored and a great

deal of effort goes into communicating the water quality

status of the catchments to the consumers. This takes place

through involvement in each and every catchment forum

and the Upper Vaal Water Management Area’s website,

(www.reservoir.co.za) which is maintained by Rand Water.

Rand Water fulfils the role of water quality auditor and

facilitator in these forums, as it has the most comprehensive

database of chemical, biological, and microbiological data.

As a result of the increasing water quality problems, economic

pressures and uncertainties surrounding incidents such as fish

kills, we have installed a number of electronic monitoring units

at selected sites in the Vaal and Wilge Rivers and the Vaal

River Barrage reservoir. These instruments measure flow at

weirs as well as selected water quality variables. The

instruments are linked to data loggers equipped with cell

phone technology, through which the data is sent to a central

server. This real time information of the determinants measured

is available on line to staff in the Water Quality Specialist

Services Department. This system has vastly improved

response time to pollution incidents, as well as significantly

improve the information base, which will contribute to a better

understanding of the dynamics of the Vaal River system.

The Vaal dam Catchment Area

A number of water quality issues have been identified with

regard to the current water quality in the Vaal River system.

Some are related to the full length of the Vaal River while

others are of a localised nature. An increase in salinity has

had the greatest impact on the usage of water in the Vaal

River.

The increase in Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and concomitant

increase in constituents such as chloride and sulphate has

major implications on domestic, industrial and agricultural

water users. The occurrence of microbiological pollutants

as localised problems is also an emerging concern. This is

indicative of sewage works and related infrastructure not

being properly operated, managed and maintained.

Coal mining activities in the upper reaches of the Vaal River are rapidly increasing.

In addition, a huge number of additional applications for

mining rights are being processed by the relevant government

departments. These are already impacting on the water

quality of the Vaal River, and, if not regulated effectively, will

have similar effects on the river to what the coal mining in the

Witbank area had on the Olifants River (where crocodiles

have died as a result of poor water quality).


Eutrophication is the other key water quality challenge in

the Vaal River System and has resulted in algal blooms and

growth of water hyacinth. Impacts have also resulted in

economic implications for water users and large expenditure

to control it.

Municipal wastewater effluent is the principal contributor to

eutrophication and degradation of the Vaal River aquatic

system, it is, however, also one of the impacts that is most

easy to mitigate because it is easily identified, measured, and

susceptible to control by policies and regulation. A number

of directives have been issued by the Department of Water

Affairs to some of the towns in the catchment, instructing them

to improve their effluent management from waste water works.

Unfortunately this has not had the desired effect.

In the long-term, increased pressure is expected from

population expansion and development in the Vaal River

catchment, which will increase pollution levels. This in

turn will necessitate additional measures and strategies to

maintain acceptable pollution levels in the Vaal River system.

Law enforcement regarding pollution has been nonexistent for

many years due to a lack of human resources in government

departments resulting in them not being able to police the Vaal

Dam catchment. It is only through continuous actions of the

catchment forums, Rand Water staff and other stakeholders,

that these problematic areas have been highlighted and are

now being addressed by the Department of Water Affairs and

the local municipalities.

In our view, serious attention should be given by municipalities

to upgrade the sewage infrastructures, minimise the ingress

of storm water into the sewer system during high flow events,

and minimise operational spillages. Improved quality of

the sewage effluent will contribute to the environmental

sustainability of the Vaal River ecosystem.

The Vaal Barrage Catchment Area

The Vaal Barrage catchment receives extensive volumes

of water from point source discharges. The point source

discharges include the major wastewater treatment works run

by Johannesburg Water, ERWAT and Metsi-a-Lekoa as well as

discharges from gold mines. The bulk of the salt load from the

mines is being discharged from Aurora (formerly Grootvlei) and

ERPM. There are also industrial effluent discharges, the largest

being from SAPPI Enstra, Sasol Sasolburg and the storm water

runoff from Mittal Steel Vanderbijlpark. The discharge volumes

from the wastewater treatment plants will grow with time as the

water requirements grow and the level of services is improved

with the expansion of water borne sewage systems in the urban

areas.

The two most important water quality issues to be managed

in the Barrage catchment for most of the sample points are

biological (in the form of faecal coliforms) and chemical

(in the form of gold mining and industrial impacts through

manganese, sodium and sulphate). The threat of acid

mine drainage (AMD) will hopefully be mitigated by the

implementation of the short- to medium term interventions by

the Department of Water Affairs. Irrespective of the quality

of such water, these decants will have major effects on the

overall hydrology of the catchment.

The more difficult issue of water quality management

is that of controlling diffuse sources of pollution. In this

regard, the biological impact of uncontrolled wastewater

runoff from informal settlements, burst pipes due to lack of

maintenance and general lack of waste management, has

seen a deterioration over the year in biological water quality.

This can and will lead to potential harmful effects on the

human populations who use the Barrage catchment river

systems for domestic and recreation uses. The occurrence of

high numbers of Giardia and Cryptosporidium cysts in the

tributaries of the Barrage is major cause for concern.

Regarding the eutrophic status of the Vaal River system, the

Vaal River downstream of the Vaal Dam is severely impacted

resulting in degradation of ecological integrity. It must be

noted that the Vaal Barrage catchment is described as a

serious “hotspot” with the highest levels of pollution (bacteria,

algae, heavy metals, salts and nutrients) recorded throughout

the entire Vaal River system. The pollution levels in the Klip

River and Rietspruit catchments of the Vaal Barrage catchment

are unacceptably high and the scale of nutrient inputs far

exceeds the capacity of the natural environment to assimilate

the waste discharged into these river systems.

Rand Water still successfully implements the Vaal River

Complex Structure Plan of 1996, which provides guidance

for the control over development in the riparian zone of the

Barrage reservoir. The purpose of the Structure Plan is to

protect the river from dense urbanisation on the banks, which

presents a pollution risk to the water. Typical of Rand Water’s

consistence and tenacity is the recent end of a 23 year legal

battle with a property owner who built a house below the

flood line. The house was eventually demolished in 2012.


PROduCTION WATER QuAlITy ASSuRANCE

Water Quality Specifications

We have adopted the SANS 241 drinking water quality

standard (95% compliance to class I and 99% compliance to

class II) as delivery specification to its customers. In addition

the organisation has a comprehensive and more stringent

internal production specification so that it can deliver to its

customers with certainty on the SANS 241 specifications.

Water Quality Measurement and Reporting

Rand Water has extensive measurement capacity consisting of

three ISO 9001 certified site labs, over 500 online instruments

and ISO17025 and ISO43 accredited laboratory. Extensive

monitoring programmes have been documented and

complied with. The online instrument upgrade programme for

the two production sites of Zuikerbosch and Vereeniging has

been completed. An online instruments upgrade programme

is in progress for the Booster sites.

Water Quality Management System

Rand Water is committed to a documented systematic risk

based water quality management system. In line with this,

a Water Quality Safety Plan (WQSP), which is based on

Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) and

ISO9001 principles, has been documented and the third

revision completed as part of continuous improvement.

A detailed water quality risk register has been established

and the third revision completed. An initiative to align

different site procedures with the WQSP was completed.

In addition, an organisation wide multi-stakeholder water

quality management standing committee has been functional

for the last ten years, and meets on a monthly basis.

The Water Quality Management System was highly rated

in the 2012 Blue Drop audit process conducted by the

Department of Water Affairs. This is reported in more detail

elsewhere in the report.

WATER QuAlITy IN ThE Bulk dISTRIBuTION NETWORk

Water Quality Supply to local authorities

Rand Water has adopted the SANS 241 drinking water

quality standard for compliance with national legislation for

the delivery of safe drinking water to local authorities and

commitment to Blue Drop Regulation certification requirements.

The drinking water quality delivered to Rand Water local

authorities during this financial year was of acceptable

quality. All physical, chemical and biological health related

parameters were complied with (Table 1).

Water Quality Benchmarking

We benchmark the quality of water supplied to local

authorities against the World Health Organisation (WHO)

drinking water quality guidelines. The assessment for non-

organic parameters is presented on Table 2. The results

compare favourably with the WHO water quality guidelines

Independent External Audit on water quality supplied

To ensure confidence in the quality of the water supplied by

Rand Water, an independent water quality audit is conducted

monthly. The organisation subjects itself to an independent

system to assess water quality supplied to local authorities

(Table 3) via an external party. During the current financial

year, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)’s

Analytical Services team was used.

Organic contaminants

The occurrence of organic contaminants in the drinking water

value chain (from source to tap) is a growing concern for the

Drinking Water industry and its consumers given the adverse

health risks these contaminants can cause to the general public.

These adverse health effects include endocrine disruption,

toxicity, teratogenicity, mutagenicity and carcinogenicity. In

the interest of public health protection, monitoring programmes

have been developed for an extended list of potential organic

contaminants.

Table 4 contains details of compounds that have been

assessed in the Rand Water drinking water value chain. None

of these compounds have been detected at levels that are a

concern to human health. Monitoring of organic parameters

is subject to an ongoing investigation as measurement of

these parameters is complex and limited analytical capacity

is available in South Africa.

department of Water Affairs Blue drop System

The Department of Water Affairs has established a repository,

the Blue Drop System, for data from water service providers.

The following aspects, amongst others, are continuously

updated on this system:

Supply system registration

Details of the supply system

Water quality monitoring programs

Operations staff classification and qualifications

Details of the water quality testing facilities

Water quality data


lOCAl AuThORITy ASSISTANCE PROGRAMME

In 2012 Rand Water kicked off an initiative to assist local

authorities with the achievement of Blue Drop status in the

2014 Blue Drop audit. This assistance was offered to all local

authorities in the Rand Water area of supply and 16 of the

17 local authorities have taken advantage of this opportunity.

In the most recent customer satisfaction survey, undertaken in

April 2013, satisfaction with the level of assistance was rated

at 94,4%. This assistance will continue in the next financial

year and will culminate in the 2014 Blue Drop A udit.

RETAIl WATER QuAlITy

Consumer Complaints

There were fifteen consumer complaints that required further

technical investigation by Rand Water during the 2012/2013

reporting period. These complaints are summarised in the table

below, the majority of the complaints were health related.

All of the consumer complaints were successfully addressed

and reported to the relevant local authorities. An increasing

number of consumer complaints are being referred to the

relevant local authority technical staff for further investigation,

as the level of competence of staff in these authorities has

improved over time.

Examples of some complaints:

Complaint 1

Consumer had concerns about her health as the doctor told

her that the cause of her bladder infection was due to E coli

in the drinking water. Investigations were carried out by Rand

Water. The water samples taken from various points in the

house (including water from the water dispenser) complied

with the SANS 241 drinking water specifications. The results

of the water samples taken indicated a significant difference

in bacteriological growth in the kitchen tap sample and the

water sample taken from the fridge water dispenser. Although

the Standard Plate Count (SPC) for the fridge sample was well

within recommended limits, it was much higher than the count

for the sample taken directly from the tap. Consumer was

informed of the results and she was happy with the action

taken. She was advised on the cleaning and replacement of

the filters to prevent future bacteriological growth.

Complaint 2

Consumer was diagnosed with high metals (Aluminium,

Nickel and lead) in his blood. The doctor indicated that

there may be a problem with the metal content of the drinking

water. Rand Water was requested to investigate this finding.

Onsite investigation was conducted and revealed that the

water samples taken from various points, complied with the

SANS 241 drinking water standard and there was no cause

for concern. Consumer was informed of the results and she

was satisfied with the action taken.

Complaint 3

Ekurhuleni Metro requested assistance with a consumer

complaint they had in the Croydon area. The complainant

reported that the water tasted and smelled like turpentine.

The results confirmed that the water taken inside the house

smelled of turpentine and the water from the outside tap had

no smell. Ekurhuleni Metro confirmed that the complainant

had found a rusted container in the shed, partially filled with

turpentine, and he will take steps to remove it and clean up

any spillage. Liquids such as solvents, fuel and oil should not

be spilt, disposed of in close proximity to water pipes (PVC)

as this may impart tastes and odours to the water.

Consumer Complaints Service Evaluations

The service evaluations done on the complaints indicated that

complainants were satisfied with the action taken.

The following direct comments were provided by customers.

“Rand Water people were very helpful and

accommodative”

“ The information and advice given was very helpful”

“ Rand Water made me to look at the complaint differently

Tap Programme

The Tap Analysis Programme has been operational for 15

years. This voluntary programme, which monitors water quality

at the end consumer in the household, currently monitors 73

sample points covering 12 municipal areas that are supplied


by Rand Water. The data collected confirms the excellent

water quality that is supplied to the end consumer.

Technical Meetings

Water Quality Technical meetings are held bimonthly,

between the water quality Specialist Services department

and municipalities within Rand Water’s service area.

These meetings were initiated in 2007 with the bigger

municipalities and then expanded to include most of

the municipalities in Rand Water supply area. We are

currently holding these technical meetings with the following

municipalities: Ekurhuleni, Emfuleni, Govan Mbeki,

Johannesburg Water, Lesedi, Madibeng, Merafong,

Midvaal, Mogale, Ngwathe, Randfontein, Royal Bafokeng,

Rustenburg, Tshwane and Westonaria. The meetings with

these fifteen municipalities are scheduled to take place

bimonthly or quarterly, depending on the agreement between

Rand Water and individual municipalities. The following

topics are covered in the meetings:

Blue drop regulations: issues such as water safety plan,

risk register, incident management protocols and a

customer interaction protocol are addressed to ensure

alignment between Rand Water and municipalities.

Disinfection (Chlorine) process and concentrations:

We report on any fluctuation in chlorine concentration

between Rand Water and individual municipalities

Review water quality supplied between Rand Water

and individual municipalities

Review monitoring programmes in place

Consumer complaints: Water quality complaints

received from customers are reported

Media issues: This includes efforts to educate and

inform the wider public on the general water quality

management through print and electronic media.

Bulk water supply contract: addresses any changes in

clauses related to water quality in the contract.

Review legal requirements: Issues such as SANS 241,

Water Act, Water Services Act, consumer protection

act and fluoridation regulation and other water related

legal requirements are discussed.

ANAlyTICAl SERVICES

Monitoring and management of water quality relies heavily

on water quality data generated for the entire supply

chain associated with the production of potable water.

The analytical laboratories of Rand Water produce water

quality data and related information used by Rand Water

in its quest to supply affordable, healthy drinking water

within its area of supply. Many thousands of water samples

are taken from source to tap by Rand Water and these

samples are analysed by Rand Water Analytical Services to

provide biological and chemical data. The data produced

by the laboratories are for parameters stipulated by National

Standards (SANS 0241) as well as International Standards

(World Health Organisation) with respect to potable water

quality.

Rand Water laboratories are comprised of dedicated ISO

17025 accredited facilities (Rand Water Analytical Services),

as well as site laboratories situated at the production sites. Rand

Water Analytical Services is a specialised and dedicated facility

comprising four laboratories: Microbiology, Hydrobiology,

Organic Chemistry and Inorganic Chemistry. Each of these

laboratories remains fully accredited by SANAS (South


African National Accreditation System) demonstrating their

compliance to international best practices with respect to the

production of analytical data. Furthermore, these laboratories

participate in various national and international proficiency

testing schemes to monitor their performance against peer

laboratories with respect to the confidence placed in their

technical competence and integrity.

The Inorganic Laboratory has recently finalised the optimisation of the laboratory process flows in order to expand analytical capability to accommodate additional workloads arriving from various Waste Water Treatment Plants.

These efforts are to support the expansion of Rand Water into

the sanitation sector. The Inorganic laboratory produces data

on metals, trace elements, ionic content, and the aesthetic

qualities of water. The newly introduced process flows

segregate the production of data for potable water from that

for waste water.

The complexities developing in the catchment with respect

to water quality are providing significant challenges to the

Organic laboratory. Parent compounds and metabolites of an

array of pharmaceutical products and cosmetics have been

detected in certain waste streams. The Organic laboratory

therefore embarked on analysing for endocrine disruptor

compounds to proactively monitor for the prevalence of these

compounds. Although Pharmaceutical and Personal Care

Products (PPCPs) and Endocrine Disruptor Compounds (EDCs)

are not regulated in the supply of potable water in South

Africa, Rand Water has proactively embarked on monitoring

for these compounds in its supply chain.

The focus of the Hydrobiology laboratory is aquatic toxicity,

algae and algal toxin monitoring, aquatic invertebrate

assessment and aquatic bio-monitoring. Scientists from the

Hydrobiology laboratory are collaborating with North West

University and the University of Adelaide, Australia on the

predictive modelling of toxic cyanobacteria in source water.

Recent developments with the water authority in Singapore

have initiated collaboration between water operators at the

Singapore utility and Rand Water Hydrobiologists to assist

operators in Singapore with invertebrate monitoring.

The Microbiology laboratory focuses on analysing water

samples for bacteria, protozoans and viruses. The classical

techniques used in this laboratory are gradually being

replaced by technologically advanced molecular techniques.

This change over provides for rapid detection of organisms

with the confidence required of such analytical tests.

The microbiology laboratory developed and implemented a

new molecular based method for the rapid detection of Vibrio

cholerae in water. The newly implemented method was also

successfully accredited by the accreditation authority.

This laboratory is currently preparing to introduce methods for the genotyping of protozoans which will position the laboratory to forewarn Rand Water of potential threats in raw water quality.

Laboratory staff engage in collaborative work with their peers

both nationally and internationally, and also present their

findings at various conferences. All four laboratories support a

variety of skills development programs, including experiential

training, bursars, and graduate development (Rand Water

internal graduates and National treasury graduates).


PROCESS TEChNOlOGy

The “water is life” philosophy is underpinned by the provision

of safe drinking water that is devoid of both chemical and

microbiological risk. In this regard, the Process Technology

Department is responsible for ensuring the selection and

implementation of the most appropriate technology in order

for Rand Water to consistently meet this goal.

The current public focus on acid mine drainage perhaps

lent a greater emphasis to the role of technology in water

treatment and several options for the potential future treatment

of contaminated sources were considered over the last year.

The Department was also actively involved in an empirical

pilot plant trial to evaluate the treatment of mine fissure

water to a drinking water standard. In line with the negative

environmental impact of mine water on raw water sources,

the future general deterioration in source water quality was a

key issue which required increased attention during the year

in review. The impact on treatment costs associated with the

likely requirement of more advanced technology in the future

was the focus of several investigations.

Key projects undertaken and focus areas in the year under review:

One of Process Technology’s core functions is to verify the

technical suitability of water treatment chemicals currently in

use at Rand Water. Comprehensive evaluations undertaken

on chemicals submitted for tender purposes and on-line

instruments in this review period included quick lime,

polyacrylamide, polymeric based coagulants and on-line

analysers for the analyses of pH, conductivity and turbidity.

The use of alternative source water (Vaal River Intake) and the

possible changing of Rand Water’s current raw water matrix,

necessitate Process Technology to ensure the use of the most

appropriate coagulants for this treatment. Different organic

coagulant products from Rand Water’s current suppliers were

technically evaluated on different blends of Vaal Dam and

Vaal River water to assess its capability for treatment.

The Department conducts an ongoing review of alternate

chemical treatment options in order to ensure that Rand Water

utilises the most appropriate treatment regime. Two projects

relating to alternate chemicals were undertaken during the

year in review, being an empirical assessment of aluminium

sulphate for primary coagulation and a preliminary evaluation

of chlorine dioxide as a co-disinfectant. The latter will be

subjected to a more thorough assessment in the new financial

year.

Current infrastructure expansions necessitated a confirmation

of treatment technology requirements for Rand Water.

In addition to an internal assessment of suitable water

treatment technology options, an independent project on

alternate treatment processes was completed by the Tshwane

University of Technology (TUT) under the auspices of the Rand

Water Chair in Water Utilisation. The TUT report confirmed

that the current suite of technology remains the most cost

effective for the treatment of Vaal Dam water to the required

quality standards.

In keeping with topical issues in water quality, an investigation

on fractionation of natural organic matter (NOM) using

recently developed techniques in the raw water and its removal

through the treatment process is in progress. Investigation

into the removal Natural Organic Material (NOM) using

granular activated carbon (GAC) and powdered activated

carbon (PAC) is in progress. Preliminary results indicate

average removal efficiency of NOM increased by 20%,

chlorine demand decreased by 37% and total trihalomethane

decreased by 58% when retrofitting GAC as final adsorption

process after filtration.


In keeping abreast with latest trends and developments in

the water treatment industry, Process Technology designed

a prototype hybrid immersed ultrafiltration membrane plant.

The prototype hybrid plant consists of adsorption pre-treatment

process with powdered activated carbon (PAC), coagulation/

flocculation and membrane filtration step. It will be used to

evaluate the treatment of Vaal dam water to potable standard.

Furthermore the prototype membrane plant will also be used

to investigate the treatment of filter backwash water.

Calibration and validation of the disinfected decay models

developed for the chlorinated and chloraminated distribution

networks was conducted. The primary objective of this

investigation was to compare predicted disinfectant residuals

with field measurements. It was observed that with changing

raw water quality and different pipe lining material the models

will require continuous re-engineering on an on-going basis.

A project on biofilm monitoring in conjunction with

Strategic Asset Management (SAM) division is in progress.

The investigation is conducted on a dedicated pipeline

(referred to as R5 pipeline) designed and commissioned by

SAM division for research and development. The total length

of the pipeline is 13 kilometres. The pipeline consists of the

two different types anti-microbial pipe lining and epoxy.

The objectives of the investigation include hydraulic capacity,

water quality, disinfectant depletion and biofilm formation.

Three in-line biofilm devices will be installed.

The disposal of water treatment works residue was the subject

of a renewed effort to find sustainable solutions to this historic

problem. A number of previous options were revisited and

a multidisciplinary team was assembled to consider new

initiatives and coordinate efforts in this regard.

Two Graduate Development Programme candidates

completed their tenure in the Process Technology Department

in 2012. Both successfully completed their assigned projects,

which addressed benchmarking of water treatment technology

and a strategic review of disinfection at Rand Water.

The work resulted in an international publication as well as

several presentations at local symposia.

Representatives from the Department visited Nam Water and

the City of Windhoek in Namibia to study water treatment

technology that has been successfully employed for water

reuse purposes. Given the critical shortage of future water

supplies, the recycling and reuse of water will be inevitable

and Rand Water must proactively establish the most

appropriate technology solutions to address this issue.

INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Scientific Services Information Management (IM) is currently

responsible for maintaining the Laboratory Information

Management Systems (LIMS) installation based at Analytical

Services in Vereeniging. Water samples from the entire

distribution network as well as catchment areas are processed

at this ISO17025 accredited laboratory. To maintain this

quality system, Information Management is tasked with

ensuring that the information and results are processed

and reported to the relevant people. IM helps the lab by

automating many of the manual processes thus ensuring valid

data within acceptable specifications with minimal human

error.

The Analytical Services IM team automated the Chlorophyll

A, Chlorophyll 665, Phytoplankton, SASS Invertebrate,

Invertebrate Identification and Enumeration method and Elisa

Microcystin methods for the Hydrobiology laboratory.


They also installed an Invoicing and Billing system at

Laboratory Customer Services to improve interaction with

Rand Water customers. Further to that, certain instruments

within the Organic Chemistry laboratory were also interfaced

directly into the LIMS system. These projects were completed

at the highest quality and well within specified timelines and

budget. The future at Analytical Services is promising, with

numerous identified projects for the Microbiology, Inorganic,

Organic and Hydrobiology labs filling the IM pipeline.

As a result of the good work done by Scientific Services

Information Management, the section was also tasked to

assume complete responsibility of the LIMS installations at

the various sites (Zuikerbosch, Vereeniging and Zwartkopjes).

These installations had fallen into disrepair, with some

not being used anymore. IM then applied sound project

management principles to upgrade these outdated LIMS

version 4 systems to the current LIMS version 6. This new

version brought the smaller laboratories on par with the

Analytical Services laboratory in terms of the systems used.

Improved user management and reporting also resulted

from this upgrade. The IM LIMS sites team, in the process

of upgrading the LIMS installation, also closed out all audit

findings identified previously. This project extended over 18

months, scheduled for completion at end June 2013. The final

sign-off was received on 31 May 2013, a month ahead of

schedule.

RANd WATER WINS ThE INTERNATIONAl WATER ASSOCIATION WATER SAFETy PlANNING AWARd

It has been 8 years since Water Safety Plans (WSPs) were

included in international reference documents: the 3rd Edition

of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Guidelines for

Drinking-water Quality and the International Water Association

(IWA) Bonn Charter for Safe Drinking Water. In this time, the

approach has been embraced by a wide group of stakeholders

in a diverse set of circumstances to contribute to improving

water safety and safeguarding public health. It is within this

context that IWA launched the Drinking Water Safety Awards

scheme in 2011 and sought nominations from water suppliers

to recognise their efforts in improving drinking water quality.

A total of 15 entries were received for the scheme, all of which

were evaluated by an international judging panel against a

set of criterion, including: demonstration of Water Safety Plan

implementation, demonstrable outreach to stakeholder groups,

knowledge and capacity development programmes in place,

and upgrade plan. Additionally, the judges reviewed the

entries on originality and innovation and complexity of the

problem or situation that the work addressed.

Rand Water was granted the Honorary Award. Recognising

the complexity of its operation as a bulk supplier Rand Water

has developed a comprehensive training programme and

introduced asset life cycle management as a result of their

Water Safety Plan. Chair of the Judging Panel, Professor Jose

Vieria (University of Minho, Portugal) commented that: “Rand

Water demonstrated a high organisational safety culture when

implementing a Water Safety Plan (WSP) in a voluntarily and

in-house basis since 2004. They have actively promoted the

WSP principles in a number of geographically independent

sites, and introduced an internal audit, undertaken by its own

governance unit in preparation for the independent audit.

Professor Hamanth Kasan, General Manager of Scientific

Services at Rand Water said that the company is “overjoyed at

receiving recognition from IWA for its continuous improvements

in the field of drinking water safety”. Professor Kasan added:

“The organisation sees this as appropriate reward for many

years of innovation in the development and implementation of

WSPs. This would not have been possible without the support

of all stakeholders, who have partnered cooperatively, to

achieve success in our multi-party supply chain.”


WATER WISE EduCATION

The Water Wise Education Team (WWET) continues to

encourage learners and teachers to live a Water Wise lifestyle

through interactive educational programmes, roadshows and

exhibitions at 5 Water Wise Education Centres, namely:

Delta Environmental Centre, Victory Park

Rand Water Nature Centre, Glenvista

Vereeniging Purification Station

Jewish National Fund Walter Sisulu Environmental

Centre, Mamelodi

Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden, Roodepoort.

During the year under review 608 programmes, roadshows

and exhibitions were held with 70 000 learners, teachers

and adults. The quality of the education service, as evaluated

by teachers, was 95.2%.

Having an extra 6 permanent staff being taken on during this

financial period has helped greatly in offering Water Wise

programmes and developing new programmes. This brings

the total NUMBER of permanent WWET staff to 10. The

success behind spreading the Water Wise message is also

working in partnership with a number of organisations, such

as Delta Environmental Centre, the Jewish National Fund,

Walter Sisulu Environmental Centre, Walter Sisulu National

Botanical Garden, Johannesburg Zoo, Johannesburg City

Parks, Wildlife & Environment Society (WESSA), Gauteng

Alliance, Coca Cola, Gauteng Department of Education, Sci

Bono Science Centre, Gauteng Department of Agriculture

and Rural Development, Sasol, ArcelorMittal, Emfuleni

Municipality, to name a few.

Highlights of the Water Wise activities during the year in

review include:

A joint programme on aquatic ecosystems was

developed and implemented at the Johannesburg Zoo

for Grade 10 Natural Sciences.

Partnerships with WESSA and Eco-Schools has

resulted in all WWET staff being trained as Eco-

School Node Co-ordinators.

Several new programmes have been developed and

successfully implemented at all the centres to support

the new CAPS (Curriculum and Assessment Policy

Statement) school curriculum in all education phases

from Foundation to Further Education and Training.

The National Youth Water Summit organised by the

Department of Water Affairs (DWA) was co-hosted by

Rand Water and despite teething problems was very

well attended and successful.

On-going training of Baragwanath nursing students on

water, sanitation and water-borne diseases.

Sponsorship through Bella Vista School enabled two

sustainable Water Wise vegetable gardens to be

planted in a crèche in Alexandra and in Bertrams

Primary School.

The Yebo Gogga exhibition at Wits University in May

2013 was again a great success with this year’s

theme being “Underground”. 2646 learners and a

number of adults visited the interactive exhibition on

the Water Cycle and Acid Mine Drainage and the

display was very well received with much positive

feedback.

Teacher training has been a great success with

over 800 teachers having been reached. A very

effective relationship with Mpumalanga Department

of Education has developed. The WWET was invited

to present at their annual Environmental Education

Conference on 25th May in Badplaas which was a

great success.

The Mazda Wildlife Fund vehicle sponsorship

contract at Delta Environmental Centre was extended

for another year. Our thanks to the Mazda Wildlife

Fund for their ongoing support.

The WWET conducted EduPlant programmes for

Food and Trees for Africa.

The Gauteng Department of Education invited the

team for the prize giving ceremony that was held at

Diepsloot High. The learners were given a project

on water management which not only focused on

Life Sciences but was also supposed to integrate

technology when solving water problems. The learners

came up with wonderful ideas and the WWET

faciliated a Water Wise Quiz and Manzi’s Water

Wise Roadshow.

The WWET organised a Christmas for Kids function

in December which was held at the Carl Sithole

Orphanage in Soweto. The function was very

successful and the biggest contribution towards the


success of the function was the willingness of the

Scientific Services staff to contribute gifts for the kids

at the centre. Manzi also made time and attended the

function to edutain the learners staying at the centre.

With the assistance from Coca Cola Canners of South

Africa two schools that the WWET works with, Reahile

and Dawn Park Primary have received rainwater

harvesting tanks. These tanks will help the schools

to save a lot of water as they both have vegetable

gardens and sports fields to maintain.

Learners from Jiswa Training Centre, which is a school

for learners with special educational needs, visited

the Rand Water Nature Centre for a Water Wise

programme.

Since the introduction of the Life Sciences project at

the Rand Water Nature Centre, in partnership with the

Gauteng Department of Education, 46 bookings were

made for the service. This service assists the learners

with the completion of the Life Sciences project that the

learners have to submit at the end of the year which

counts towards their final mark.

The Riverside Hotel and the Vanderbijlpark Rotary

Club requested the team’s assistance for their Madiba

Day celebrations on 18 July.

The team facilitated an exhibition and activities at the

National Science Week at Osizweni in Secunda,

which was from 30 July to 3 August 2012.

The Sasol Techno X Exhibition in Sasolburg was held

from 13 to 17 August. The Water Wise Exhibition

theme was “The Water Wise Express Train is Your

Tap Water” which involved using the WWET train

as part of an interactive story. The team received the

third place award for Best Exhibition: Businesses.

During that week a programme on the Aqualibrium

activity (developed by the South African Institution

of Civil Engineering - SAICE) was facilitated on the

exhibition stand and water purification programmes

were conducted at the Vereeniging Purification Station

as part of the site visits. A letter of appreciation was

presented to Rand Water for the site visits.

February saw the WWET from Vereeniging facilitating

22 roadshows and reaching 16 085 learners with

the Water Wise message. 20 of the roadshows were

at schools in the Metsimaholo region. The WWET

is working in partnership with Sasol, Department of

Education and Department of Water Affairs for the

Busa Metsi Project.

The Team assisted Marketing and Stakeholder Relations

with an exhibit and a Manzi “Meet and Greet” at the

Randfontein Show on 1 and 2 March where 2000

people from various ages and backgrounds were

exposed to Manzi and the 6 Meanings of Being

Water Wise.

The team conducted a session with the Vereeniging

Station staff at the Recreation Club for the Station

Managers’ Roadshow.

Students from North West University (NWU), Vaal

University of Technology (VUT) and University of

Johannesburg made use of the WWET to further their

learning.

A number of Biodiversity and Water Wise programmes


were merged at the Walter Sisulu National Botanical

Garden and are now being offered to schools.

Manzi had the opportunity to visit Parliament in Cape

Town in May and he had the privilege of escorting the

Minister of Water Affairs around the exhibition area at

the parliament hall.

The team has also developed a number of Water Wise education materials:

4 advertorials in the Spur Restaurant’s Totem Magazine

for September, December, April and June.

An advertorial in the EnviroKids magazine February

edition.

Three funky 6 metre hexagonal Water Wise exhibition

stands, i.e.

An advert which is a game that illustrates the

edutaining services WWET offers;

A river scene that shows an above water scene

on the outside of the exhibition and an underwater

scene on the inside;

Manzi’s Water Wise House that shows how

Manzi uses water wisely on the outside and on

the inside of his house.

A new WWET brochure that advertises the services

offered by the team at the 5 different Water Wise

education centres.

Two Water Wise Holiday Programmes for the children of Rand Water staff were organised for the financial year:

The December 2012 Holiday Programme was to

Bushbabies Monkey Sanctuary and Vulpro (a vulture

rehabilitation centre) in Hartbeespoort; and

The April 2013 Holiday Programme was to the

MonteCasino Bird Gardens.

The Water Wise Education Team uses a number of effective

avenues in order to spread the Water Wise message and will

continue to broaden its services to ensure that our customers

live a Water Wise lifestyle.


Communities are facing challenges relating to water and sanitation services provision in South Africa and Africa as a whole. The establishment of our Sector Growth and Development Division is Rand Water’s response to these water related challenges in order to mitigate and negate their negative impact to the environment, society and the economy.Our growth thrust is founded on the expertise which Rand

Water has accumulated over the past years in the water

business. It is therefore our responsibility to identify the market

needs and then package our solutions properly in order to

respond effectively and efficiently to what the national and

international (Africa) water market demands.

Our strategic growth imperatives are underpinned by the

following salient factors;

Government is demanding greater support from

State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) to contribute to the

national socio-economic development goals.

Rand Water seizing a market opportunity to create

water services capacity in areas where there is

lack thereof, inefficiencies and losses.

The need for Rand Water to diversify its service

offerings and income stream.

Service delivery shortfalls present good

opportunities for Rand Water to acquire new

business.

The Sector Growth and Development Division comprises of

the following departments;

Water services

Business Development

Bulk Sanitation

Strategic Customer Partnerships

Water Demand Management

Catchment Management services

Research, Development and innovation

The revenue generating departments are tasked with the

responsibility of growing the business by providing;

Management support, infrastructure upgrades,

process optimisation, training, operation/

maintenance of water and wastewater treatment

(including acid mine drainage and water reuse)

schemes.

Water quality management services.

Water use and demand management services to

reduce non-revenue water.


Catchment management services to preserve the

quality of raw water in rivers and dams.

The non-revenue generating departments provide business

development and customer management services, as well as

Research, Development and Innovation.

WATER SERVICES

Construction of the Emergency Raw Water Pipeline to

Supply Ermelo Water Works (Northern)

The town of Ermelo and its township in the Msukalikwa Local

Municipality area experienced severe water shortages since

November 2012 due to the drying up of the two dams, i.e.

Douglas Dam and Willem Brummer Dam.

The Department of Water Affairs appointed Rand Water to

investigate the problem and find and implement solutions to

resolve the crisis.

The recommended solution was to install an emergency

pipelines above ground which is 350 mm in diameter and

12km long to supply raw water from the Southern Water

Works (SWTW) to the Northern Water Works (NWTW) due

to water shortage from

The total project value was R52 529 417.63 inclusive of VAT

with a two months duration for construction.

The construction of the pipeline was completed within four

months. Commissioning was successfully concluded and the

water crisis was resolved.

Refurbishment of Water Scheme: Bushbuckridge Water

Following a Ministerial directive issued on 2 February 2010,

Rand Water (RW) was requested to assist Bushbuckridge

Water. Based on the due diligence investigation, the following

projects were prioritised and funded for implementation;

Establishment and implementation of metering and

billing

Repair/replace/refurbish pumping units

Implementation of an asset management system,

Telemetry and SCADA Systems

The implementation of the abovementioned projects will

assist Bushbuckridge Water to produce authentic water bills,

improve efficiency of treatment schemes and management

thereof. A budget amounting to R18 million is allocated to this

project. Completion is expected by February 2014.

Improvement of Water Supply in katanga (dRC)

Rand Water has been appointed by the Department of Water

affairs as an implementing agent for the Katanga Water

supply improvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo

(DRC). The purpose of this project is to improve the condition

of the water supply schemes in Lubumbashi, Katanga District

in the DRC.

The project goal is to increase pumping capacity (replace old

pumps and motors), increase reliability of supply, reduce water

losses, increase availability of pumps, improve water quality

in the prioritised areas and enhance equipment sustainability.

All the materials needed for the successful rehabilitation of

the pumping system for the city of Lubumbashi have been

procured in South Africa and shipped to the DRC to be

installed.The project budget is R22 million and forms part of


the African reconnaissance projects coordinated through the

department of water affairs. The expected completion date is

now October 2013.

Sasol Pipeline Project

Rand Water has been involved in the design, construction,

supervision and operations and maintenance of 13.5km long,

600mm diameter steel pipe which supplies raw water to

SASOL plant in Secunda. The project has been running since

2006 and was extended for another 5 years in January 2012.

Operations of the Eskom Grootvlei Power Station Water Treatment Plant

Client: Eskom

Budget: R11.4million

Period Duration: September 2010 – August 2014

The Grootvlei Power Station Water Treatment Plant purifies

raw water from the Vaal Dam and pumps it to the Power

Station via a 45 km underground pipeline. The water is further

treated at the power Station to boiler feed water and is also

used for cooling processes. The plant pumps an average of

26.1 million litres per daily.

REFuRBIShMENT OF INFRASTRuCTuRE

Joe Gqabi district Municipality (JGdM)

Due to the population growth and insufficient funds to maintain

and operate the waste water treatment plants, the JGDM had

experienced numerous problems related to the operation and

treatment of their waste water treatment works in Oviston.

The terms of reference for the appointment included

conducting an audit in order to propose appropriate upgrade

and refurbishment so that the final effluent is compliant with the

requirements of SANS 0241. The rehabilitation also made

provision for the rehabilitation of associated civil and pipeline

infrastructure. The refurbishment was conducted through the

Accelerated Community Infrastructure Programme (ACIP) a

DWA funded program. Similar challenges were experienced

at their Aliwal North WWTW. The challenges experienced

included dysfunctional WWTW and raw sewage spillage

into the Orange River. These were refurbished during the year

under review.All the appointments have been completed to

the satisfaction of both JGDM (client)and DWA (funder).

Implementing Agent for the Gauteng and Northern Cape

Rapid Response unit

Client: DWA

Budget: R2.2 million

Period Duration: May 2013 – March 2014

Critical analysis of the water value chain has revealed

weaknesses and inefficiencies which lead to challenges in

providing quality water services. The resultant failure of the

infrastructure is further compounded by natural disasters.

In spite of these challenges the Department of Water affairs

and the water sector have to ensure that there is adequate

capacity and financial support to ensure rapid response

should any of these failures occur. The DWA has appointed

Rand Water as implementing agent to respond to crises that

result from water and wastewater infrastructure challenges

e.g. cholera outbreaks and sewage spillage.

Rand Water is currently responding to the following

challenges in the Northern Cape Region:

Professional support to Municipalities to ensure safe

drinking water supply.

Implementation of the Work plan for the Northern

Cape Transfers and refurbishment programs.

Provision of Technical and Engineering support to

DWA Northern Cape Region

INSTITuTIONAl SuPPORT TO BOTShElO WATER BOARd

The Minister took a decision to intervene in the affairs of

Botshelo Water after realising that the utility required support

in a couple of disciplines which included but was not

limited to leadership, governance, financial management,

operations and maintenance. The Minister requested Rand

Water to second officials in strategic positions to provide the

necessary support in order to turn around Botshelo Water.

Additional support is made available by Rand Water as

and when required. The project commenced in July 2012

and it should be completed by December 2014. This

intervention was aimed at turning around the state of Botshelo

Water and providing a sustainability plan going forward.

The project scope encompasses the entire value chain

required to manage a water utility. This include, but not limited

to; operation and maintenance, corporate services, finance

and administration, policy formulation, Human resource

management, infrastructure development and management,

board governance and compliance reporting.


Bottled Tap Water

During the year under review our Sector Growth and Devel-

opment Division was responsible for the design, build, instal-

lation, operations and maintenance of a bottling water plant

with the intent of bottling tap water.

Elements of the project to be noted include;

The bottling water plant being modular in nature

with capacity to accommodate future upgrades

to the plant which may include the ability to

carbonate and flavour the water.

The product is utilised for internal Rand Water

purposes as well as for supplying government

institutions such as the Department of Water Affairs.

We are currently designing a long-term business

plan that may include the entry of this product

into the retail sector of the Fast Moving Consumer

Goods (FMCG) market.

The Rand Water bottling water plant was commissioned in

January 2013 and has an ability to produce 2000 bottles

per hour. It has complied with all the commissioning and

acceptance testing criteria. The design of the plant was based

on the premise that there should be minimal interference with

the water that comes through our treatment works processes.

The only additional physical treatment provided is that of

filtration through a three stage pre-filtration system (5um,

1um and 0.45um) to remove suspended solids. The plant is

designed to run for 24 hours a day, seven days a week and

can be adjusted based on our internal specifications.

Quality Management

The quality management system at Rand Water (which is

based on the ISO 9001 quality management system) will

be implemented at the bottling water plant in an effort to

achieve accreditation status as soon as possible. Policies and

procedures will need to be designed and staff trained and

certified competent to enable the bottling water operations to

achieve an ISO 9001 standard accreditation.

Water Quality Management

A Water Quality Plan (WQP) has been designed and

comprises two major components viz. the Water Quality

Monitoring Program as well as the Water Quality Assurance

Program.

The bottled water product not only complies with SANS 241

drinking water quality standard but also to a myriad of other

legislative Acts and Regulations which are not necessarily

associated with the water industry e.g. Foodstuff, Cosmetics

and Disinfectants Act, 1972, Health Act, 1977, Trade

Metrology Act, 1973 and the Consumer Protection Act,

2008.


The primary objective of our Bulk Sanitation Department is to extend sanitation services to water service authorities and institutions within, and beyond our area of supply. Rand Water`s partnership with the Department of Water Affairs and local authorities focuses on addressing sanitation challenges such that the country’s environmental assets and natural resources are protected and preserved.

Our work in this arena, as outlined by the Water Services Act

(No. 108 of 1997), includes the assessment of wastewater

treatment plants, and providing site specific recommendations

to municipalities, to ensure effluent compliance to Department

of Water Affairs Green Drop Certification Programme.

We are involved with the provision of the management,

operation and maintenance of the wastewater treatment

works; capacity building and training of process controllers;

industrial effluent monitoring programme; the refurbishment

and process upgrade of water and wastewater treatment

works; the management of the pump stations; and the

refurbishment of Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) plants.

Our Management,Operation &Maintenanceof WWTWs

BulkSanitation

Value Chain

IndustrialEffluent

MonitoringProgramme

Capacity BuildingThrough On-jobTraining

Management,Operation &Maintenance

of AMDPlants

EffluentRe-use

ProcessUpgrade

ofWWTW

PROJECTS

emfuleni Local Municipality

In September 2009, we entered into a five year partnership with

the Emfuleni Local Municipality for the provision of operations

and maintenance of both its sewage pump stations and its

three Wastewater Treatment Plants; capacity building; the

implementation of an Industrial Effluent Monitoring Programme

(IEMP); and a process upgrade and plant refurbishment.

The overall final effluent compliance of the Emfuleni Wastewater

Treatment Works for the year under review is tabulated below.

This was achievable due to the commitment of Rand Water

and the Emfuleni Local Municipality’s management and

technical staff.

Monthly Percentage effluent Compliance

Month Sebokeng Rietspruit Leeuwkuil

Jul-12 100 91 97

Aug-12 91 93 98

Sep-12 97 78 94

Oct-12 98 71 84

Nov-12 95 90 94

Dec-12 100 94 100

Jan-13 91 88 88

Feb-13 97 81 88

Mar-13 88 84 85

Apr-13 93 94 91

May-13 97 93 87

Jun-13 97 91 87

Year Ave 95 87 91


Green drop Certification

The assessment session for the 2011/2012 Green Drop

cycle as facilitated by the Department of Water Affairs

occurred in September 2012. The provisional scores for the

plants are as follows;

Leeuwkuil WWTW (80 - 84% B-)

Sebokeng WWTW (70 - 79% C+)

Rietspruit WWTW (50 - 69% C-).

The final moderated Green Drop scores will be madeavailable later in 2013.

MAINTENANCE OF PuMP STATIONS

Rand Water is providing maintenance to all 44 pump stations

in the Emfuleni Local Municipality. Our staff based on site

at the pump stations is a combination of general workers,

Engineers and a Maintenance Manager. This combination of

in-house skills as well as contractors is used to ensure that the

work is carried out to the highest accepted standards.

The maintenance work undertaken is inclusive of the overhaul

of failed pumps at all of the pump stations, and the repair

and maintenance of valves. It also includes the cleaning

of sumps and screens, as well as general housekeeping

inclusive of cutting of grass and removal of weeds at the pump

stations. Since our involvement with the maintenance of the

pump stations, spillages have been reduced by 70%. Pump

station overall availability has been increased to over 80%.

The Municipality at times does request assistance from Rand

Water regarding the maintenance of their networks which are

not part of our contractual agreements.

Industrial Effluent Monitoring Programme

All local authorities are responsible for pollution control and

prevention thereof within its boundaries. Local authorities are

responsible for ensuring that all water users pay according to

the quantity and quality of effluent produced by them and that

the taxpayer does not indirectly subsidise industries for the

treatment of industrial effluent.

Since Rand Water partnered with Emfuleni Local Municipality

in 2009, an Industrial Effluent Monitoring Programme was

drafted from the relevant municipal by-laws. An Industrial

Effluent Monitoring Programme includes the monitoring of

those industries discharging into the municipal sewer systems.

The industries are categorised, monitored, controlled and

appropriately billed. At present there are thirteen large

water users (wet industries) discharging effluent into two of

Emfuleni Municipal wastewater treatment works (Rietspruit

and Leeuwkuil Wastewater Treatment Works) – collectively

contributing to 1.25% of the hydraulic load on the Works.

Both treatment plants eventually discharge into a tributary of

the Upper Vaal River. It is critical that industries discharging

to the wastewater treatment works are correctly monitored

and controlled. The industrial data for the year under

review indicates that the average industrial organic loading

contribution did not exceed the maximum allowable limit

of 5000 mg/l. The improvement in the organic load was

achieved by our consistent industrial monitoring, inspections

and through direct interactions with the relevant industries.

Based on the effective industrial effluent monitoring programme,

industries now pay a cost- reflective tariff amount. The revenue

generated contributes to the operation and maintenance of

the Municipality’s Wastewater Treatment plants.

Capacity Building and Skills Transfer

Our Bulk Sanitation staff endeavours to provide the transfer of

skills to operational staff at the wastewater treatment works.

This is done by on-site Rand Water Regional Operators.

During the year under review, Rand Water Bulk Sanitation

developed a training schedule to cater to the specific needs

of the Emfuleni and Thembisile Hani Local Municipalities


staff at each of the respective wastewater treatment works.

The capacity building programme of the operators has

become a daily task, with the goal of skills and knowledge

transfer being the focus. We also held a community awareness

initiative during National Sanitation Week 2013, under the

theme Sanitation for Health and Dignity, focusing on the

impact of foreign materials in sewer manholes. RAND WATER AS IMPLEMENTING AGENT FOR SANITATION INFRASTRUCTURE UPGRADES

Rand Water was requested by the Emfuleni Local Municipality

in April 2012 to implement various bulk sanitation infrastructure

projects at budgeted amount of R 34 295 473.40 which is

funded through Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) – funding

given to local authorities by the Department of Water Affairs

for the upgrade and/or refurbishment of their water and

sanitation assets. Included in this project is the installation of

telemetry systems at sewer pumps to minimise sewer spillage;

the refurbishment of gearboxes and the installation of mixers at

Sebokeng wastewater treatment works which will secure an

improvement of effluent quality and a reduction in electricity

consumption. Funding for projects from MIG funds has seen

improvements in the manner in which municipalities manage

their assets.

Sedibeng Regional Sewer Scheme (SRSS)

Rand Water has been appointed as an implementing

agent by the Department of Water Affairs to implement the

Sedibeng Regional Sewer Scheme. The Scheme will address

the overcapacity of wastewater treatment works and sewer

networks, and seek to improve their effluent quality discharge.

The scheme will be phase-in approach and will be sub-

divided as follows:

Upgrading of Sebokeng WWTW to 100 Ml/day

Upgrading of Meyerton WWTW to 15 Ml/day

Construction of a new 150 Ml/d Sedibeng WWTW

Construction of the Sedibeng Reclamation Plant

Thembisile hani local Municipality

The partnership to provide bulk sanitation services to

Thembisile Hani Local Municipality started in 2009 for the

provision of operation, maintenance and capacity building

services to Tweefontein K Wastewater Treatment Works.

The overall effluent compliance of the works during the year in

review was 70.8%. This was mainly due to constant powers

failures which the plant experienced and illegal dumping

of toxic trade effluent into the council’s outfall sewer during

the course of the year. Rand Water recommended to the

municipality to (i) install a standby generator as back-up

electricity supply to the treatment works and (ii) to curb illegal

dumping of toxic chemicals through the enforcement of trade

effluent by-laws.

Westonaria local Municipality

The Westonaria Local Municipality has shown an increase in

population figures, and acknowledges that it has experienced

challenges in fulfilling its legislative and regulatory mandate

of ensuring compliance with effluent discharged from its

infrastructure. These are for a variety of reasons including,

but not limited to, a lack of funding and human capacity

and demand exceeding the capacity of the existing works.

We partnered with the Municipality for the extension of its

Hannes van Niekerk wastewater treatment plant. The project

cost for the extension of Hannes van Niekerk wastewater

treatment works which includes civil, mechanical and

electrical services is R275 million. The current capacity of the

Hannes van Niekerk wastewater treatment works is 22 Ml/d.

The estimated contributions of future developments anticipate

the flow in 2020 is estimated at 46.9 Ml/d, which

indicating an extension of 25 Ml/d. Since the geotechnical

investigations to assess the extent of the dolomitic conditions

determined that the best suited land available could only

accommodate 15 Ml/day; the excess effluent will be pumped

to the proposed new Zuurbekom wastewater treatment works.

The civil, mechanical and electrical works designs and tender

documentation for the 80 Ml/d new Zuurbekom wastewater

treatment works has been completed.

The Hannes van Niekerk Wastewater Treatment Works

project commenced in January 2012 and is expected to be

commissioned by early January 2014. Rand Water together

with the Department of Water Affairs and the Municipality are

in a process of finalising the funding model and the operations


and maintenance arrangements for both Hannes van Niekerk

and Zuurbekom wastewater treatment works.

Brugspruit Water Pollution Control Plant (Acid Mine

drainage Plant)

With our capacity and technical skills in the water, wastewater

treatment and acid mine drainage processes, we have been

assisting the Department of Water Affairs on an ad-hoc basis

with the operation and maintenance of the Brugspruit AMD

Plant. The Plant is designed to neutralise 10 Ml per day of

High Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) acid water from the Southern

and Northern decanting points. The Plant is meant to improve

the quality of water discharged in the Upper Olifants Water

Management Area in the Western Highveld Region.

In an attempt to find cost effective solutions to acid mine

drainage challenges in South Africa, especially in the Western

Highveld region, Rand Water partnered with a Japanese

technology company in collaboration with the Department

of Water Affairs and the Embassy of Japan in Pretoria, to

introduce an advanced technology in addressing the issue of

AMD. The Embassy has provided the grant funding from the

Japanese government to the value of 20 Million Japanese Yen

(R2.1 Million) to supply the pilot plant in Emalahleni area with

the maximum treatment capacity of 12 m3/day of acid mine

water in Brugspruit Water Pollution Control Works

The pilot plant will utilise advanced Reverse Osmosis

Desalination technology to treat the neutralised acid mine

water to potable and industrial grade standard. The pilot

plant is anticipated to be installed and commissioned at

Brugspruit Water Pollution Control Works during 2013 for a

period of four months. The lifespan of the pilot plant is 5 years

and due to its mobility, the pilot plant can be moved and used

in acid mine drainage treatment pilot studies elsewhere in

South Africa.

Mantsopa local Municipality

Rand Water was appointed by the Department of Water

Affairs in November 2012 as an implementing agent for the

refurbishment of the Ladybrand water treatment works and

pump station and the Genoa pump station, in the Mantsopa

Local Municipality.

Matjhabeng local Municipality

Rand Water was appointed by Matjhabeng local municipality

in October 2012 for the refurbishment of its Phomolong and

Hennenman waste water treatment plants. The refurbishment

was on its Inlet Screws, Biological Reactor as well as

Secondary Settling Tank. The project was completed and

handed over to the municipality in June 2013.


The CVM survey seeks to measure the perception and

satisfaction levels of Rand Water’s customers, while on the

other hand the SLE’s measures Rand Water’s performance

against the Bulk Water Supply Contracts.

Summary of 2013 Service Level evaluations (SLe’s)

2011 2012 2013

Evaluation Score 95.3% 97.0% 97.7%

Rand Water has entered into Bulk Water Supply Contracts

with all our customers to record the current and continued

provision of bulk water supply services so that it can render

the services in an efficient, equitable, cost effective and

sustainable manner. In order to ascertain if we meet this

objective, we conduct annual Service Level Agreements

with all our customers. The above ratings indicate that Rand

Water continues to do well with the respect to the contracts

signed with our customers. The 2.3% non-compliance is often

due to situations outside our control; e.g. there are certain

areas where there is no spare water capacity to supply to

those customers, and Rand Water has no control over the

availability of raw water to supply its customers.

We understand that customer service is central to the success of our business. Our Customer Value Management Survey (CVM) and Service Level Evaluations (SLE’s) are annual initiatives which we undertake in order to measure and understand our customer expectations.


CuSTOMER VAluE MANAGEMENT SuRVEy

Summary of 2013 Customer Value Management Survey (CVM)

Index Score Comparison

Categories2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Change(n=134) (n=69) (n=119) (n=152) (n=150)

Overall product index score 86.2 92.6 86.2 88.8 96.9 +8.1

Overall forward planning index score 82.9 87.4 86.3 85.8 71.1-14.7

Overall water resource management index score 83.6 84.7 82.9 84.3 74.3 -10.0

Overall operations & maintenance index score 83.0 87.1 83.4 84.1 85.3 +1.2

Overall billing and administration score 82.3 89.6 80.8 81.2 89.7+8.5

Overall strategic competency score 84.0 89.6 86.4 88.2 92.2 +4.0

Overall communication score 81.6 83.4 81.9 82.1 78.7 -3.4

Overall relationship management score 83.9 87.6 86.6 84.5 88.1 +3.6

Overall price index score 73.5 79.6 77.1 73.5 77.7 +4.2

Overall image score 85.2 89.1 85.9 85.5 86.2 +0.7

Overall Regional Account Executives score 80.0 84.8 81.5 79.6 85.5 +5.9

Overall emotional drivers index score 84.6 89.3 86.8 85.3 87.5 +2.2

Overall Customer Value Management score 82.5 87.1 83.8 83.6 84.4 +0.8

Largest increase Largest decrease

The results of the CVM show that there has been significant

decrease in the areas of forward planning and resource

management index scores. There has been a steady

improvement in the areas of product and billing and

administration index scores. These results indicate that there

are areas where Rand Water needs to improve on. Rand

Water is currently focusing on improving its operations in

these areas. However, the overall customer value score has

seen a steady increase over the past five years. The industry

standards are rated at 83%.

The Rand Water Forums

Rand Water has established the Forums as a communication

vehicle with its customers. The Forums’ main objective is to

educate the customers on all water related matters and create

a debate around relevant topics. These would then influence

some decisions in the water sector. Rand Water customers

are encouraged to contribute to the forums as this will give

them a better voice in the water sector. Some of the topics

discussed include “Water Demand Management, Water

Quality Management, Water Leaks, Acid Mine Drainage” to

name a few. In addition to the topics discussed and debated,

Rand Water uses the Forums as a consultation vehicle for

tariff consultation in line with the Bulk Water supply Contract

and Section 42 of the Municipal Finance Management Act

(No. 56 of 2003).

Customer Service

Our Customer Service Centre is a critical touch point for the

businesses. During the year under review we have achieved

the following;

Resolved 79% of queries at first hand without

transferring them for technical assistance.

Capping the abandoned call rate to below 13%, this

occurs when a caller hangs up before reaching an

agent.

Upgrading the Microsoft CRM system to the new

version, enabling Rand Water to automatically

track and measure customer requests, incidents and

fulfilment so they can gauge how well the call centre

is performing and recognise where improvements are

needed. The potential result of all this is that customers

receive faster and more responsive service, and are

therefore more likely to be satisfied with the interaction

with Rand Water.

Upgrading the Siemens Open-scape telephony system


The underlying purpose of Water Demand Management (WDM) is to improve inefficiencies on the downstream side of the supply chain, thereby avoiding more expensive supply side upgrading and augmentation and simultaneously avoiding the overloading of sanitation collection and treatment infrastructure.

In doing so, WDM would reduce the cost burden on the paying

end customers which in turn contributes to the sustainability of

all Water Servics Institutions (WSI) in the water sector.

It is therefore imperative taht all WSI’s embrace WDM and

integrate it into their strategic planning and, most importantly,

starting implementing WDM without delay. This purpose of

WDM supports Rand Water’s Vison and Strategic Objects in

various respects.

The Department of Water Affairs has extended our

appointment as the Implementing Agent for the Hartbeespoort

Dam Biological Remediation Programme (Harties Metsi a

Me) beyond Phase 1 of the programme (development and

pilot implementation). Phase 2 of the programme (Full scale

implementation) commenced in April 2012.

The following has been achieved through the programme to

date:

Development of a complete biological remediation

plan for the restoration of water quality. This is the

first of it’s kind in in Africa to adopt an integrated

biological approach to address water quality issues.

Pioneering of an inland waters buoy marker system

which has been adopted by South African Marital

Safety Authority SAMSA for implementation to all

inland water bodies;


Development of floating wetlands to compensate for

areas where riparian vegetation rehabilitation is not

an option;

Implementation of foodweb restructuring is the first of

such an initiative in the country. 232 tonnes of coarse

fish (carp and catfish) already removed;

Physical removal of biomass (algae and hyacinth) from

the dam water surface. To date 39868 m3 of algae,

97198 m3 of hyacinth and 2613 tons of debris have

been removed from the dam.

All ‘waste’ material is recycled and reused for

beneficial purposes, therefore no waste is generated

by the programme.

Pilot sediment dredging at the Crocodile River mouth

and bulk sampling of the “jelly layer” sediment at the

dam wall.

Sustainable employment has been created for over

110 people from the local communities with intensive

training and development plans for capacity building.

Intensive upgrading of a communication and

awareness centre at the dam wall to facilitate

communication and awareness creation to various

stakeholder groups including schools.

The principle responsibilities of Rand Water as Implementing Agent include:

1. Compilations and submission of business management

plans inclusive of training and social development

plans;

2. Coordination and management of the project activity

implementation;

3. Establishment of the necessary structures to facilitate

implementation;

4. Appointment of service providers;

5. Occupational Health and Safety;

6. Asset management and

7. Financial management

The project is funded by the Department to the value of

R125 million. It is envisaged that the programme will eventually

be handed back to the Department of Water Affairs who will

continue the efforts currently being undertaken by the Metsi a

Me Programme

Feasibility Study into Effluent Reuse Options in Rand Water’s Area of Service

Rand Water commissioned a study to identify the potential

of effluent reuse within its area of service in an effort to

alleviate the pressure on existing water resources for potable

use. The study identified a significant potential for reuse

particularly in the industrial and mining sectors within the City

of Johannesburg and Rustenburg areas.

Water quality requirements for different potential user groups

as well as bulk supply infrastructure requirements and

additional retrofitting on the customer side were qualified and

costed within 3 business plans. Written commitments to take

up the treated effluent as industrial grade water were also

obtained from potential customers to ensure the feasibility of

the project.

Govan Mbeki local Municipality Water loss Project

Rand Water was appointed as an implementing agent

by the Govan Mbeki Local Municipality to assist with the

Water Demand Management interventions within the Govan

Mbeki Municipality area. Rand Water, Govan Mbeki and

Sasol entered into partnership where each party contributed

R1, 5 million each for the implementation of the project.

The project has been running since 2010-11 financial year

During the year under review the following was completed

Retrofitting of 3000 households in Embalenhle

Repairs of valves in various reservoirs in Embalenhle

Repairs of Emzinoni Tower that was leaking for more

than a year

Retrofitting of 500 households in Lebohang Township

A hydraulic model was developed for the Secunda

area

Metsimaholo local Municipality Water loss Project

Rand Water was appointed as an implementing agent by

the Metsimaholo Local Municipality to assist with the Water

Demand Management interventions within the Metsimaholo

municipality area. Rand Water, Metsimaholo and Sasol

entered into partnership where each party contributed with the

development of a business plan to address Water Demand

Management and identify necessary interventions.

During the year unde review the following was completed

17 bulk water meters were procured for all towns

within the municipality

Surveying of Zamdela and Sasolburg town was

completed and the meter chambers were designed

Ekurhuleni war on leaks project

We were appointed as an implementing agent by the

Department of Water Affairs in January 2012 for a period

ending 31st March 2014, for a war on leaks project within

Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality. The objective of the

Project is to reduce the water losses and consumption at

domestic level. This will be achieved through active leakage

control, leak fixing and retrofitting of defective fittings and an

extensive awareness campaign.

The total budget for the project is R10 million and was

allocated as follows:

2012/13 R450 000 for compilation of the Business Plan

2013/14 R9 550 000 for the implementation of the

recommendations from the Business Plan

Ngwathe Emergency Project

Rand Water was appointed by the Department of Water

Afairs in December 2011 to implement an emergency

project within Ngwathe Local Municipality. The phases of

the project were:

Phase I: To restore water to the town of Parys after

after the area had experienced water shortages due to

major pipe bursts at the treatment plant and pumping

main

Phase II: To assist the Ngwathe Local Municipality with the

following the following interventions:

New nozzles and filter media for the following

treatment plants:

Koppies

Vredefort

Repair of a leaking 200 mm pipe in Heilbron

Repair of a leaking reservoir in Heilbron

Repair of a leaking reservoir in Edenville

Repairs to the reservoirs and pipelines brought water savings

of over 40 000 l/day

The total budget for the project was R 651,000.

Investigation of low water pressure in Bedworth Park: Emfuleni Municipality

Rand Water was appointed by the municipality to act as an

Implementing Agent for the investigation, analysis and solution

of the low water pressure problem in Bedwoth Park.

The main objective of the project was to provide the

municipality with a solution that would ensure long term

sustainable minimum water pressures at peak times as per the

municipal by laws.

The project has since been completed the recommendations

made to the municipality

The total budget for the investigation was R 500,000.00


To meet business and organisational challenges now and in the future, organisations must maximise the potential of their workforce by engaging the hearts, minds, efforts and energies of their human capital talent. This is pivotal to success, organisationally and individually.


Our Group Human Resources Portfolio is strategically placed to ensure that it supports and enables the entire organisation’s objective in particular to driving a high performance culture and to support growth.

Our recruitment and selection of individuals with the right skills, at the right time in the right positions will ensure that the organisation continues to supply services according to its mandate by our Shareholder.



In order to ensure that the employees, once placed in the correct jobs perform at optimal levels, the Human Resources Portfolio undertakes various activities and programs such as the roll out of the Performance Management System and Capacity Building initiatives to all employees. These and others are aimed at ensuring that the employees

are more aware of their role and contribution towards the

attainment of the organisational objectives and where there are

gaps these will be addressed through focused interventions.

Other initiatives that have been undertaken by the Portfolio

during the year under review are; the Productivity Awareness

initiative, measuring Employee Engagement, rolling out of

Wellness Initiatives and ensuring that the Participative Forums

contribute to sound labour relations.

Of particular note was the October 2012 launch of the

Rand Water Academy at the Zuikerbosch Purification

Plant. The Rand Water Academy has a dual focus

to ensure that Rand Water and the Water Sector are

appropriately capacitated with the relevant professionals.

Alignment of Corporate and Group human Resources

objectives

It is in the best interest of the organisation if Corporate

objectives are aligned with those of the Group Human

Resources Portfolio.

This is captured in the figure below;

Key Organisational Themes

Achieve Growth

Achieve Operational Integrityand use best fit technology

Achieve a High Performance Culture

Positively engage Stakeholder base

Maintain Financial Health & Sustainabliity

Key Human Capital Themes

Attract, develop (grow) and retain our talent

efficiencies and effectiveness

Performance Management

Internal and external Stakeholder Management

ROI (Investment decisions, budget allocation)

INFORM

eNABLe

Key initiatives undertaken during 2012-2013 Financial year:

Roll-out of the Performance Management System to Bargaining Unit Employees

Launch of the Rand Water Academy

Productivity Analysis

TAlENT MANAGEMENT

Training - Capacity Building

To ensure alignment to the strategic objective of a “high

performance culture”, the Capacity Building Department

is focused on capacitating employees within Rand Water

to meet these requirements. Capacity Building supports the

business by driving skills development through accredited and

credit bearing programmes that are designed to enhance

Rand Water’s human resources.

Empowering Rand Water to support the Presidential outcome

of “A skilled and capable workforce to support an inclusive

growth path”, the Capacity Department is geared to create

a strong pipeline of technical skills through technical and

water related learner ships, Engineering and Science bursars,

Graduate in Training programmes, Internship programmes

and Apprenticeships. Our Capacity Building policy supports

the organisation’s business strategy to increase its Graduates


and Interns innovative and operational efficiency by building

capability and capacity that will enable transformation and

business sustainability.

Legislative requirements in skills development are clearly

upheld and executed through our Workplace Skills Plan

(WPS) and forms part of our skills development initiatives.

This ensures the drive that Rand Water has a skills pool to

source from and is aligned with the Water Sector Skills needs.

Driving the business needs of our customers is evident through

the Bursaries and Learner ships, where all areas of business

are considered. Capacity Building manages the ladder of

development of employees through a system of policies

and processes that ensures growth in employee’s skills and

competency levels. It aims to:

Support growth initiatives as well as optimising

business operations;

Ensure that business requirements will inform capacity

building initiatives;

Ensure alignment to the National Skills Strategy when

focusing on some initiatives especially those aligned

to functional and legislative requirements;

Ensure design of customised programs to accelerate

organisational change, agility and capability;

Integration with the Employment Equity Plan to ensure

fairness;

Monitor, track and evaluate business impact of core

capacity building initiatives to entrench culture of

accountability and measure return on training spend;

Ensure alignment with the Water Sector Skills needs.

Capacity Building reaches out, supports, and drives skills

development initiatives that speak not only to Rand Water, but

also caters to the wider water sector. Rand Water, through a

number of annual programmes detailed in the below table,

is committed to the development and capacitation of internal

employees, unemployed individuals, graduates and other

trainee categories that collectively represent it’s potential talent

pool from which it can source current and future employees.

Career Expo’s and Campus Visits

Skills

Development

Projects

employed employed

Female TOT Male TOT Female TOT Male TOT Grand

Total

A C I W A C I W A C I W A C I W

Internal

Bursaries

80 7 7 8 102 92 3 4 3 102 2 2 2 2 208

External

Bursaries

77 7 12 12 19

Apprenticeship 5 5 7 1 2 10 12 12 12 39

ABET 16 16 14 2 1 17 0 0 33

Graduates/

Interns

0 0 19 1 20 12 1 13 33

learnerships 65 8 1 5 79 53 1 1 10 65 6 1 7 14 1 15 166

Grand Total 166 15 8 13 202 166 7 5 16 194 46 1 0 48 52 1 1 0 54 498

Rand Water has a presence at Career Expo’s and Universities

as part of it’s awareness drives. The purpose of these

interventions are to expose students to the programs offered

by the organisation, potential careers within the organisation,

the application processes and the entry requirements per

category. For the 2012/2013 financial year the following

were undertaken:

Campus Visits undertaken annually during May and June

2013 at the Universities where RW bursars are studying:

University of Pretoria

Tshwane Univ. of Technology

Vaal University of Technology

University of Limpopo

Cape Peninsula Univ of Tech


North West University

University of South Africa

Witwatersrand University

Mangosuthu Univ. of Tech

Blue drop - Water Treatment Technology

Water Technology Training (WTT), under Capacity Building is

currently overseeing the entire Rand Water Blue Drop Training

profile for Process Controllers (PCs) and Supervisors. This is

in accordance with the revised Regulation 17 of the Water

Services Act (No. 108 of 1997)/ Regulation 2834 (of 1985),

outlining that there shall be no person operating a water

treatment works without a Process Controller license. One of

the nine criteria for a Blue Drop Award is Process Management

and Control under which PC’sand supervisors should be trained,

registered and classified as per the Regulation 17 requirement.

In order to meet this requirement, Process Controllers should

be appropriately qualified coupled with relevant years of

experience. For the training cycle 2012/2013, WTT trained

56 learners comprising of 32 Process Controllers and 14

Assistant Process Controllers on the qualification Water and

Wastewater Treatment Process Operations at NQF Level 2 &

Water and Wastewater Process Control NQF Level 3. Through

the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) avenue, a further 39

Process Controllers were assessed. In total, 71 PCs (inclusive

of operators and supervisors) out of a potential 186 Process

Controllers underwent training. According to Schedule III of

Regulation 17, the Process Controllers shall acquire a shift in

their current class once they are certified and Rand Water PCs

depending on the “Class of works” must be classified as follows:

Zuikerbosch and Vereeniging: Class II to V, Zwartkopjes,

barrage, Zuurbekom: I to V

Performance Management

The Performance Management system has been rolled out to

all staff to enable and drive the strategic objective of achieving

a high performance culture. The Performance Management

Department has engaged and consulted with organised

labour at the collective bargaining forum to formally launch

the Performance Management System. Training was provided

to all bargaining unit employees and all employees have

contracted on a single performance management system for

the first time during the 2012/2013 financial year. Training

sessions were available in Zulu and Sotho to accommodate

staff who had difficulty in understanding the training in English.

This roll-out represents reaching approximately 1800

employees thereby standardising the Performance

Management System to all levels of employees of Rand Water.

Talent Management initiated a program to create a Key

Performance Indicator (KPI) library for employees, which will

assist Managers and Supervisors in identifying common and

consistent KPI’s per job profile and level. The KPI Library aims

to:

Create standardisation across all positions and levels,

Remove subjectivity in the interpretation of KPI’s,

Output and outcome focused results,

Ensure alignment of the different levels by cascading

relevant targets to relevant levels.

In rolling out the integrated Performance Management System,

management has initiated generic cascading of strategic key

performance indicators and targets (Employment Equity, no

repeat audit findings, Black Economic Empowerment) which

were cascaded to the relevant levels of the organisation. In

order to create efficiencies we have merged the performance

management process with the short term incentive process.


EMPlOyEE RElATIONS WEllNESS

The Employee Wellness Programme in Rand Water is a

“comprehensive, multidisciplinary, and people system that

seeks to promote, improve, and optimise health, well-being,

and high performance of Rand Water employees”.

The Integrated Wellness model focuses on 6 dimensions of

wellness which are the key components of the framework,

namely physical, social, occupational, spiritual, intellectual

and emotional wellbeing.

One of its objectives is managing the impact of health and

psycho-social problems on company’s productivity by looking

at issues such as absenteeism and its financial impact,

medical care costs, insurance claims costs as well as other

indirect costs.

Prevalence of hIV/AIdS

Our corporate HIV/AIDS Triple Zero strategy as well as our

HIV/AIDS and other life threatening diseases policy are part

of the broad integrated wellness strategy. HIV and AIDS is

viewed no differently to any other lifestyle disease such as

diabetes, hypertension, etc. This stance is taken to eliminate

the perceived stigma of the disease.

As part of our Wellness strategy, we provide HIV counselling

and testing (HCT) services, support, treatment and care

through our disease management programme as part of the

medical aid benefit for employees and their dependents.

Some of our HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns are done

during our Wellness Weeks and the annual observation of

the World Aids Day.

Our dynamic onsite Wellness Practitioners provide support not

only to infected employees who have disclosed their status, but

also to employees who are facing personal problems related

to HIV that are impacting on their work performance. Support

to HIV positive employees is given through counselling,

treatment literacy and healthy lifestyle education.

We currently have 125 active Wellness Champions who

work on a voluntary basis to assist their peers with information

and education sessions on HIV/AIDS and general health and

wellness issues. The champions are able to highlight areas of

concerns at face value and assist in encouraging their peers

to participate in HIV and AIDS campaigns and other wellness

initiatives.

Rand Water undertakes the HCT campaign annually as

part of its wellness services. The HCT campaign originally


undertaken to support the South African government’s national

drive to encourage people to know their HIV status and to

access counselling and treatment at the earliest possible

stage. This campaign is intensified in order not to lose the

incredible momentum of ensuring that HIV testing remains a

regular part of health seeking behaviour.

During the year under review the campaign took place in

September to October 2012 and the results are indicated in

the table below.

The table below indicates the overall prevalence rate per site

of the total number of staff who have tested. Rand Water has

a prevalence rate of 11% which is less than the National

prevalence rate of 12%.

Prevalence Rate per site

New infections

The above table indicates that of the total number of staff who

tested 44% are new infections, whilst 56 % are previously

known cases. This can be seen in a positive light in that the

Rand Water campaign of HCT is driving getting the message

through to employees and most employees are realising the

importance of testing and knowing their HIV status.

This will further enable Rand Water to act swiftly and promptly

in managing the effects of the epidemic on the business.

FINANCIAl MANAGEMENT PROGRAMME

Financial problems are common challenges to all individuals

and do not only impact employees but their families as well.

Severe financial problems of employees does not only affect

these individuals but the business as well, resulting in low

productivity, absenteeism, low morale, stress related illnesses

and increased costs to the medical health scheme etc.

Research indicates that at the end of March 2010, South

Africa had 18,22 million credit active consumers. Of these

8,37 million (46%) had impaired credit records (i.e. three

or more months in arrears with their instalments, judgment

granted against them or subject to an adverse credit bureau

entry). A further 2,6 million (14,5%) were debt stressed (one

or two months in arrears with payments) and the above

research is no exception to Rand Water employees.

Our Wellness Programme, in partnership with the Capacity

Building Department, introduced the financial skills training

programme for the employees with the objective to empower

employees with personal financial management skills that

will enable them to manage their income and expenditure

patterns responsibly. The aim is to bring about positive

behaviour change in employees to live within their means.

The programme also assists the over indebted employees to

get out of debt.

To date, we have trained at least 40% of employees in

personal financial management. The training will continue

until October 2014 with the intention to empower as many

employees as possible about debt management, budgeting

and saving skills and also to assist employees who are over-

debted.

EMPlOyEE RElATIONS

The labour relations climate in Rand Water continued to

be calm, in spite of the uncertain and volatile climate in

the country. Parties at Amanzi Bargaining Council agreed

to plant level negotiation. Amanzi Bargaining Council is a

bargaining council for the water utilities.

Our workforce remains highly unionised. In 2012-2013,

83.33% of the organisation’s employees belonged to trade


unions and 16.66% are non-unionised. Almost 13% increase

from last year’s 73.6%. Membership increased from 73.6%

during the financial year 2011-2012 to 83.33% during

2012-2013. We have two recognised unions, namely the

South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) and the

United Association of South Africa (UASA). SAMWU accounts

for 63.83%, while UASA is at 19.5%.

Trade Union Membership

SAMWU

UASA

NO UNION

EMPlOyMENT EQuITy

Rand Water continues unabated in its effort to ensure

that Employment Equity remains a strategic intervention

in achieving its obligations as set out in section 13 of the

Employment Equity Act, Act No. 55 of 1998. To this end, the

organisation has an Employment Equity Plan which ensures

that Employment Equity Targets are achieved.

The number of all staff at Management (M-Q bands) stands

at 907, of which 712 are African, Coloured and Indian

(ACI) which constitutes 78.50% of the staff compliment at

Managerial Levels. In addition to the information above,

139 of the 146 employees recruited at M-Q bands were

ACI, which translated into 93.92% against a target of 75%.

Across the organisation the number of ACI stands at 2821

out of the total staff compliment of 3214 which translates into

87.77%. The number of ACI appointments were 305 out of

the total number of 324 overall appointments. This translates

into 94.10% of ACI recruitment.

The number of females at M-Q bands stands at a total of

373 which represent a 41.01% female population of the total

staff at the managerial levels. Across the organisation, the

number of females stands at 1005, or 31.05% of the staff

compliments. The number of females recruited at M-Q stands

76 which represent 51.35%. At the same time the number

of female recruits across the organisation was 143 which

constitutes 44.10%. In addition, Rand Water has resuscitated

the Women’s Forum, whose aim is to ensure that women

issues are fully attended to. The forum has a seat allocated

at the Employment Equity Forum. The improved drive towards

female recruitment at M-Q bands has significantly paid off.

Whilst the female population at that level stood at 26.07%

5 years back, currently the number has almost doubled.

However, unlike the male population, scarcity of the female

population in the engineering sector, in particular, presents

serious challenges not only to Rand Water, but the whole

sector in general. The tables below give an indication of the

above statistics.

employment equity Status as at 30 June 2013 (M-Q)

Category Band Total Staff DemographicsDemograph-

ics %Recruitment Recruitment % Target %

ACI M – Q 907 712 78.50 139 93.92 75

FEMALES M – Q 907 373 41.01 76 51.35 47

employment equity Status as at 30 June 2013 (All Rand Water)

Category Band Total Staff Demographics Demographics % Internal/external

appointments

Recruitment %

ACI All Rand Water 3214 2821 87.77 305 93.92

FEMALES All Rand Water 3214 1005 31.05 143 44.10

PWD All Rand Water 3214 138 4.3 12 3.7


Technogirl

In its effort to ensure gender representation, Rand Water

embarked on a number of programmes. One such programme

is the Techno girl. “Techno girl” is a Programme that focuses on

exposing girls to careers in scarce fields and this is intended to

increase the number of girls who take careers within these fields.

This is done through a process of job shadowing (girl learners

are placed in companies and other organisations, under the

mentorship of people who work in these fields). Rand Water

started the programme by placing 60 pupils who are in grade

9 to be part of the initiative for the next 4 years.

The following table indicates the number of girls per area of operation:

Number of Girls per area of Operation

AReA OF GIRLS NUMBeR OF GIRLS

Operations 12

Maintenance 17

Process Quality 7

Strategic Asset Management 8

Bulk Sanitation 2

Scientific Services 14

Total 60

The table below shows a distribution of girls across Rand Water sites and the schools they come from:

Site/ Station No. of Girls School

1. Bulk Water Distribution 7 Erasmus Monareng Secondary School

2. Rietvlei 11 Zakariyya, Daleview & Sakhisizwe Schools

3. Panfontein 3 Fundulwazwi Secondary & Moshate Secondary Schools

4. Scientific Services 14 Reseidensia Sec, Tokelo Sec & Fundulwazi Sec Schools

5. Vereeniging Station 9 Fundulwazwi Secondary & Moshate Secondary Schools

6. Zwartkopjes 8 Erasmus Monareng Secondary School

7. Zuikerbosch 8 Fundulwazi Secondary School

TOTAL 60

Employee Engagement

Further to the conclusion of our Employee Engagement Survey

in the previous financial year, the Employee Relations Division

conducted a series of feedback sessions based on the

survey results. Training sessions were also held for managers

at various levels to help them understand and leverage the

critical roles they play towards fostering engaged employees

and teams.

Rand Water believes that employee engagement is not just

the ‘job’ of executives and management alone but that of

individual employees as well. In order to achieve improved

productivity and performance levels, engagement must be

built and entwined into the day-to-day operations of the

organisation and the functions of every employee.

Therefore, going forward, training will be filtered down to

employees, as individuals should also be held responsible for

their own satisfaction and contribution levels.

Ziyagezana Excellence Awards

The Board and Management of Rand Water have

displayed an unwavering commitment and support to

recognising and appreciating extraordinary effort and

contributions of employees, as the organisation celebrated

its tenth Ziyagezana Excellence Awards in December 2012.

The event marked the achievement of a significant milestone

for the peer-to-peer recognition programme, since its inception

in 2003.


The following individuals and teams received awards in the

various categories as listed below:

1. Employee of the year – kurt Scheepers

2. Innovator of the year – Salome koekemoer

3. Boss of the year – Simon Xaba

4. Wellness Champion of the year – Regina Thapeli

5. Chief Executive’s Award - The Rand Water Academy

Team

6. Team of the year - Bulk Sanitation

7. Mover & Shaker of the year - Fezeka Sotywambe

Management also awarded the following Special Categories:

Best Contribution to Orderly Collective Bargaining – Costa

Raftopoulos

Best Project: Contribution to the Empowerment of Women in

Communities – Bantu Bonke Community Project

Participation Co-Operation and Partnership

The Rand Water participatory framework continues to

provide a relevant and practical approach for consultation

and information-sharing. It is based on the principles

of transparency, mutual respect and inclusiveness and

accommodates the interests of both management and trade

unions.

Internal stakeholders are given an opportunity to mutually

influence decision-making on policy matters that affect staff.

For the year under review, the Stakeholders’ Forum reached

consensus on the following:

Wellness Policy

Death-in-Service Policy

HIV/Aids and other Life-threatening Diseases Policy

Guidelines for Ziyagezana Excellence Awards

Adjudication Committee Members

COMPENSATION ANd INFORMATION

Reward Approach

The Rand Water Total Rewards philosophy is underpinned by

the principle of viewing rewards from a holistic perspective

that considers employees as unique “whole” individuals.

The main objective of the Rewards Philosophy is also to

ensure that there is an appreciation by all employees that

remuneration is not only about the hygiene factors of salary,

bonus and benefits, but of all the other aspects of the work

1 2 3 4

5 6


environment that complement these eg social benefits,

challenging work, training opportunities, relationships with

peers and manager. This in keeping with generally striving

towards a balance between the Remuneration, Benefit and

environmental offering, and creating an attractive Reward

Environment.

ORGANISATIONAl dEVElOPMENT ANd dESIGN

Organisation design

In 2011, the board of Rand Water approved the reorganisation

of the Rand Water new structure in support of the Turnaround

and Growth strategy. The agreed implementation strategy

was to implement the changes in a three year time frame.

This financial year, the roll out of the second phase to

capacitate the organisation was completed specifically in the

SAM division to enable the Capex programme.

The additional business cases for other support environments

were completed and signed off to enable the required

capacity in view of supporting the growth initiatives.

Change and Transformation Initiatives

To support the Rand Water strategy, that of Turnaround and

Growth, the ODD function has delivered successfully on the

following transformation programs:

lEAdERShIP TRANSFORMATION PROGRAM

Leadership Charter

The journey continues in enabling the RW leadership through

the rollout of the Leadership initiatives in line with the adopted

Leadership Charter. The Leadership Charter provides leaders

with a guiding framework of the distinctive skills, competencies

and behaviour that Rand Water leaders need to demonstrate

in order to foster the development of an organisational culture

that supports the organisation’s vision and strategy.

Achievements to date (Leadership Interventions):

Executives, Senior and Middle Management Interventions

- Rand Water has partnered with The Gordon Institute of

Business Science (GIBS) to deliver on open leadership

programs, and Leadership initiatives. This initiative has

afforded the said leaders an opportunity to contextualise what

leadership means to Rand Water with some of the leading

speakers both from locally and globally. Rand Water has

partnered with Regenesys Business School and other service

providers to deliver on supervisory initiatives. The Personal

Mastery and Team Effectiveness Interventions were delivered

to empower Supervisors in discovering their respective values

and beliefs with a view to enable them to link these to their own

actions. This intervention further empowered the Supervisors

to create a vision and action plan for both work and

personal life as well as create the new patterns of behavior,

attitudes, and actions and build effective relationships. The

Team Effectiveness module was also successfully delivered to

Supervisors to enable customer focus teams, team leadership

and team management and individuals own leadership style.

This was delivered in view of excellence and effectively

managing team performance and customer excellence that is

aligned to the Rand Water model of excellence.

Change Champions Programme

The Change Champion Program was established with a

view to ensure ownership of continuous improvements within

the organisation as well as expose our employees to best

practices (locally and internationally) that consistently support

high performance culture.

Achievements to date (Change Champions Programme):

Lesotho Highlands Water Project Study Tour

(12 – 15th March 2013)

This Study Tour exposed the change champions to the

various aspects of the collective effort between South

Africa and Lesotho to give effect to water service delivery.

This supports the organisation’s strategic pillars: achieve a high

performance culture and positively engage stakeholder base.

The Lesotho Highlands Water Project is highly recognised

as one of the largest and most intricate water infrastructure

construction project in the world.

International (France and Netherlands) Study Tour/

Benchmarking Trip (19 May - 2nd June 2013)

The international study trip exposed the team to a world

class water sector experience, with the view to broaden

their intellectual infrastructure knowledge around the areas

of business turnaround, transformation and change as well

as to expose them to world class systems, technologies and

different business models.


Change Management Tools Training

The Rand Water change champions were further empowered

by the successful completion of the Change Management

training through Deloitte. This training has equipped them with

the relevant tools to facilitate the organisation transformation

initiatives as required. In an effort to inculcate creativity in line

with the Rand Water Innovation hub, the Change Champions

also spent a day exploring the Deloitte Innovation hub.

Productivity Analysis Program

The Rand Water Productivity Program was approved in May

2013. The establishment of this program is in response to

the Rand Water Growth strategy and aims to address the

organisational efficiencies as well as increase productivity

levels and equip each and every employee with tools to

manage their work environment effectively in order to attain

the desired business efficiencies.

The objective of this program includes:

Analysing the current levels of productivity across the

organisation;

Identifying potential productivity gaps;

Identifying opportunities for improvement

Implement a sustainable Productivity solution ;

The implementation of the program will span over 3 years and comprises of the following implementation phases

Implementation Phase Description

Plan and Assess • Analyse current levels of productivity

• Understand the current state of the organisation

Design • Define future productivity state

• Identify productivity improvement opportunities

• Develop implementation roadmap

• Development of productivity accounting methodology

• Development of productivity reporting tool

Implement • Define and implement a Productivity roadmap of how to achieve operational excellence

Monitoring and evaluation

• Embed productivity improvements opportunities and develop plans for sustainability

• Benefits realisations and tracking

Achievements to date (Productivity Program):

The Productivity Program Team was established in June 2013

with a view to drive the successful implementation of the

program. This is a joint effort and skills from Rand Water, KPMG

and Productivity SA. The launch of the program was signified

by the Chief Executives awareness communication to the entire

workforce within Rand Water. This communication entailed

the strategic intent of the Productivity program in line with the

organisation strategic objectives reflected in the Corporate

Business Plan. The GHRE further sensitised the entire workforce

through the publication of the follow up communiqué to unpack

the programme and how it will unfold and the various initiatives

planned throughout the life cycle of the programme. To ensure

the programme visibility and buy-in within the organisation, the

Rand Water Productivity team embarked on a campaign as well

as brand campaign.In order to enable the support and buy in

of the program within the organisation, the Rand Water key

leadership (comprising of PIC members, general managers as

well as Site Executive Managers) were engaged to solicit buy

in, obtain their respective inputs as well as expectations of the

program in the context of their respective business areas. Critical

stakeholders including the Unions have been engaged through

the PCP structures. In line with the program implementation plan,

the program team has also successfully defined a project plan

and a project charter that will guide the successful delivery of

the program.

The benefits to be realised are:

To ensure that Rand Water realises the business

efficiencies;

To ensure that the Total Cost of running the business is a

true reflection;

To ensure that the productivity gains are shared with all

the stakeholders;

Realise a Productivity base Culture in support of the High

Performance Culture as articulated in the Rand Water

Strategy.


RANd WATER ACACdEMy

The Vision of the Rand Water Academy is to be the first-choice

provider of Global solutions to the water and sanitation

sectors by addressing key human resource, technological and

process challenges that on a daily basis plague the sectors.

how is Rand Water responding to the skills development

initiatives emanating from the presidential outcomes?

In his previous State of the Nation Address, President Jacob

Zuma reported that the unemployment rate had declined.

While our gains in this regard are nominal, they are still

note-worthy. During 2011, a total of 365 000 people were

employed. This is the country’s best performance since the

recession of 2008, he said. “But, we are not ‘out of the

woods’ yet and still face the triple challenge of unemployment,

poverty and inequality.”

Rand Water fully supports the observations made by the

President, says Wayida Mohamed, Group Human Resource

Executive at Rand Water. The President has portrayed a

realistic representation of the state of the country, as well as the

attainable goals set for the year ahead. Rand Water has taken

up one of the challenges of combating unemployment in the

country and is hosting a National Treasury funded project called

the Graduate Internship Programme Water and Waste Water.

Entry into the workplace is filled with barriers. Many young

graduates remain unemployed because of their lack of

hands-on skills and experience, required for many jobs and

businesses. As South African businesses and organisations we

have a greater responsibility to remove these barriers. Our

country’s youth can always do with a bit more care, a bit

more stability, a bit more hope, and the beautiful thing about

hope is that it allows us to see a way through chaos and

complexity, believing that things will be better in the future.

To assist in the creation of employment for young qualified

graduates, our Graduate Internship Programme: Water and

Waste Water, is providing skills, experience, professional

registration and employment for 120 previously unemployed

graduates.

Which professions is the programme intended for?

The initial professional disciplines recognised by the Rand

Water Academy are for Engineers, Scientists, Artisans

and Process Controllers. The recipient institutions of these

graduates will be water services authorities in the Gauteng,

Mpumalanga and Free State provinces. The project period is

three years, with eighteen months of training at Rand Water

and eighteen months at the recipient water services authority.

What are the benefits of the academy in the medium-to

long-term?

One of the remedies being developed by Rand Water for

the water and sanitationSector is a Rand Water Academy


(RWA). The far-reaching benefits of such an Academy at a

local, continental and global level will have huge benefits in

the medium-to long-term.

We understand that the pursuit for resource development,

empowerment and transformation within the water and

sanitation sector is never-ending, Mohamed says.

As a result, the RWA will evolve over a period of years into a

world-class institution that will become a first-choice provider

of solutions to Rand Water and the sector that endure critical

water and sanitation challenges on a daily basis.

The primary function of the Academy relates to assisting in

combating unemployment and skills challenges timeously. In

addition, it will provide the best candidates to business and

hence, contribute to the productivity of the company and/or

related companies.

Through the collective efforts of government and business we

can, begin to write a new story about South Africa in the

story of how we can drive away unemployment and reduce

economic inequality and poverty by working together.

Who will this Academy cater for?

Rand Water business, the water and sanitation sector, both on

a local and international level.

About the Rand Water Academy

The Rand Water Academy is borne out of a few key

strategic needs both at a national and political level, and

an internal Rand Water need to systematise the various

pockets of excellence in training and development operating

independently across the organisation into a single integrated

unit.

This move to integrate and create efficiencies signals the

broader intention to pursue a sector-wide influence within

(and among sector partners) and outside of the borders of the

Republic of South Africa.

Within the African continent the issues are far more demanding

looking at critical areas of:

Low or no capacity to source and purify drinking

water

In some African countries there is a high sources of

water yet no efficient standard to purify into drinking

water

Poor water management that affects economic

development

Unpurified water, which can lead to epidemics

Little or no sanitation systems

Poor management of assets/ infrastructure water

systems

Limited qualified professional resources to undertake

sector objectives.

Rand Water, through the establishment of the Academy, can

play a pivotal role in skills and capacity development given the

global standards that the organisation measures itself against

and surpasses. The RWA sets out to address the critical skills

issues that affect the South African water and sanitation sector,

as well as the broader continent.

The focus of the academy could extend beyond a skills transfer

focus and could incorporate various other models, including

technology development, research platforms and centres of

competence and excellence status. In line with one of Rand

Water’ s strategic organisational objectives and its 2030

Vision, which is to have a high performance culture and to

specifically build capability and capacity to meet changing

organisational requirements, the concept of an academy

could be the special purpose vehicle to drive and sustain that

strategic objective.

The Rand Water Academy will progressively be realised

through specific phases of development incorporating five

key concepts:

A CENTRE OF EXCEllENCE

Addressing one of the key challenges of Process Controller’s

classification based the Blue and Green Drop incentive-based

regulations.

Achievements to date

Establishment of a center of expertise for process

controllers at the Zuikerbosch pumping station in

Vereeniging.

Forty Process Controllers are currently employed and

are being trained at the centre of expertise

Setup of basic water and waste water laboratories

for basic process controller training at the Rand

Water Academy.

rand water iar 2013 part 2

Documents