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The Chiawelo area of Soweto, 25 miles from
Central Johannesburg, was still a battle zone when
engineers from GIBB ventured there in 1993 to plan
a badly needed sewerage improvement. There was a
lot of political and labour unrest, along with
excitement and fear about the future.
People in the 400 to 500 houses in the scheme
have outside flush toilets and also some communal
washing blocks. The sewers serving these had for
years been prone to overflow. Pipes, laid in the
1960s, were only 100 or 150 millimetres in
diameter, half the size of those now laid. Strife
during the struggle against apartheid prevented
maintenance. Moreover, the population in the area
had doubled with new people building shacks in the
backyards. This added to the burden on the
undersized pipes.
GIBB’s
project, financed by Greater Johannesburg
Transitional Metropolitan Council, was to lay two
miles of sewer pipes to relieve the old, and so
improve living conditions as part of the South
African Government’s Reconstruction and Development
Programme.
People were keen to have their sewers improved.
But GIBB still had to tread carefully. Existing
sewers ran right through the properties. Work would
disrupt people’s lives. Elsewhere, it would affect
gardens and maize plots. Dissatisfied groups could
de-rail the whole project.
So GIBB needed to get local people involved and
to feel they owned the scheme. But who represented
them? Local politics were polarised and divided
rather than organised and accepted.
The GIBB team spoke to residents and to the
Soweto Civic Association. They got a focus group
formed representing ten organisations: the African
National Congress, the ANC youth and women’s
leagues, the Pan-African Congress, the Azania
People’s Organisation and church and women’s
groups.
The focus group acted as a link between GIBB and
local people until the 1994 elections. Afterwards,
GIBB dealt with the Chiawelo Civics organisation.
So local people provided firsthand information and
also security. Hijacking of vehicles is a common
local crime, and the project lost one vehicle and
cell phone to hijackers (who let their victim keep
his cheap watch). In the main, all went well.
Discussing people’s needs took time but GIBB
sees it as an investment in South Africa’s future.
GIBB was prepared to amend the design to meet
residents’ wishes.
Its team explained what to do if the old sewers
gave problems again, what procedures to follow and
who to contact within Soweto Council. Andre Human
of GIBB comments: “Our being there to assist got
the council to attend to blockages speedily.
Usually it would be three to five days before
blockages were cleared.”
Another bonus for Chiawelo people lay in the
agreement drawn up for the contractor, P & R
Civil Construction. This envisaged an
earn-and-learn programme. It stipulated that local
people were to be employed to do the work and would
be trained in bricklaying and pipelaying. Chiawelo
Civics and the workers themselves decided that the
full minimum wage rate should be paid and what the
terms of employment should be, which reduced
disputes.
Much of the money spent thus flowed into the
Chiawelo community whose members got new
opportunities beyond the pick-and-shovel level.
This was achieved without additional cost to the
council.
GIBB is now embarking on a water scheme in
24,000 houses at Tembisa in the East Rand.
Maintenance had not been possible, and two-thirds
of the supply is running to waste. Andre Human
says: “We are repairing leaks inside people’s
properties and educating people on water use and
especially saving water.”
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