New setback for water-strapped Port Alfred

With its busiest tourism season just a month away, water-scarce Port Alfred’s plight just got a little more desperate this week after the Ndlambe municipality failed in its high court bid to force a contractor to resume water production at its vital desalination plant

Quality Filtration Systems in September stopped all work on the “emergency” reverse osmosis system which has been billed as an important part of the solution to crippling water shortages in the popular seaside hamlet.

QFS said the municipality had failed to cough up more than R600,000 owed for work completed.

But, Ndlambe took QFS to court to force it to continue its work, claiming it had breached the contract by suspending all work without adequate notice.

In the meantime, court papers suggest the municipality is being forced to truck in water for the town’s 35,000 residents at a whopping cost of R110,000 a day.

In weighing up what to do, Makhanda high court judge Murray Lowe said he was called on to decide whether QFS had suspended work due to nonpayment or if the Ndlambe municipality had withheld payment because QFS had failed to deliver on its contract.

Court papers reveal that the long drought had depleted Port Alfred’s bulk water supply from the Kowie River and Sarel Hayward Dam.

It was simply unable to meet the town’s 6.54 ML/day demand.

This demand increases significantly during the festive season.

The municipality said in court papers that QFS’s decision to stop work on the project had resulted in an immediate negative impact on water availability.

QFS was contracted to provide two plants to the water-deprived town.

The first is a seawater reverse osmosis plant which would provide 2Ml a day and a reclamation reverse osmosis plant, which would provide 3Ml a day.

The two plants are interdependent as water from the reclamation plant is required to dilute the seawater brine for the other plant.

The municipality contended that its nonpayment to QFS was justified as QFS was in breach of its agreement.

It said this breach was worsened by its decision to stop work without giving 21 days’ notice.

It asked the Makhanda high court to compel QFS to continue with its work pending dispute resolution and arbitration on the terms of the contract

But QFS said the municipality had failed to pay it for work that the municipality itself had signed off on as having been completed.

It said after submitting a signed-off invoice for just more than R1m in July, the municipality had settled just a fraction of it, leaving more than R600,000 owing.

In line with its contract, QFS notified the municipality in early September that it would suspend its work on the project.

Lowe found both that the money was owed to QFS and that the company had provided adequate notice of its intention to suspend work on the project.

He dismissed Ndlambe’s application for the court to compel QFS to continue its work pending arbitration.

Ndlambe municipal spokesperson Cecil Mbolekwa had not commented at the time of writing on Thursday. However, he indicated that the council was due to meet about the issue on Thursday afternoon.

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