Imtiaz Sooliman – Gift of the Givers drilling boreholes to assist struggling Nelson Mandela Bay communities

The races on to find alternatives of water sources for Nelson

Mandela Bay before Day Zero hits. Gift of the givers is on the

ground drilling boreholes to assist communities. Founder, mts

Suleiman joins me now. Dr Suleman, good to speak to you, not that

it's a good afternoon, but incredible work that you're doing.

Talk to us about the drilling of boreholes and how many people it's

likely to impact.

New role. It's more than just drilling boreholes. It's a

combination of various interventions in the city itself.

The Fall started drilling. A few months ago, we took balls in three

different schools. We've now approached those schools to have

water to spread the water. In other words, we done pipelines

from those schools into the across the fence and into the community,

so people from around the communities could get whilst we're

visiting those schools that we had built previously, schools,

teachers, principals from neighboring schools came as a

building today in great difficulty. If there's any way we

can help, they'll keep the schools open during the holidays, and then

we started our own building from last week, Monday. There's been

phenomenal success for the balls. We put in 20 Alpha primary,

getting about 200,000 liters a day from those two balls. But the big

success was in Malabar primary, because in the right area, the

right type of geology, the right type of rocks, the right type of

water, and half a million liters a day from that bowl. We're busy,

and we just reach another 8000 meters per day. In the Jose

Pearson TV hospital, there's an emergency now to drill in

Elizabeth Duncan psychiatric hospital, those patients are going

to be severely affected without water. We've been called by

Provincial Hospital as well as by Livingston hospital, and we're

going to see what we can do there. So the balls we're putting up, you

know, we've earmarked different areas, predominantly in the red

zones, and predominantly where the rocks are good and where the water

yields will be good and where the water quality would be good at the

same time whilst doing that, brilliant exports. And of course,

just let me explain a little further. When you draw a drill a

ball in the school, for example, in Malabar primary school, it

means 1100 children benefit, the teaching staff benefit, and they

can take the water from them to their homes where they come from.

Now there's a huge spread in that school. There's children come from

busses and from eight different areas, as well as many busses from

different areas. And in addition to that, there's four informal

settlements around the school that can draw water from there, as well

as a formal server also in the area. So that's what we try to do.

We get to many areas as soon as possible, as quickly as possible,

as efficiently as possible. That's the one aspect. The second aspect

is, in most cities or towns that you go to, there are walls that

have been drilled some time ago. In my first meeting with the

municipality last week, Tuesday, Tuesday. Ask them, do we have such

bowls that have been drilled and not being used? And they came

back, and they found a list, and they sent teams with us to

identify those balls, the ones that are in the perfect areas,

which are practical. We already start opening them, and we will

put just have to put pumps in, and we can provide water to several

areas. Then whilst doing that, we got a call from the cleaner and

document what's going to happen to the dogs. And there's no water

yet, but we have a borehole. So we went in, looked at the borehole,

and, you know, we opened it, and again, we can spread the water.

And the last big thing that has happened, of course, the other

thing is, we will be putting Georgia tanks for the municipality

in all the areas that the water tankers will go and fill the

water, and even in those areas where underground pipes are going

to work, we're going to put the Georgia things there. And then a

good thing happened. Late last week, said a boss, the salt

people, called us, and they said, Look, from the desalination plant,

they can give us 500,000 liters a day. So with that water, what

we've already got and what we busy drilling with, we should be able

to have soon more than 2 million liters of water per day as an

addition to add to the city. Well, I suppose the next question would

be just, how much water do we actually require? If we're able to

get 2 million liters per day, how far will this actually go?

If you take it as 10 liters to our community, it's 200,000 people who

can benefit, especially for drinking, for just for taking

medication. Of course, they can't bath with it. They can't feed a

plants with it. They can't do clothing with it. But for the

essential for survival, just to drink water and to take the

medication, and for cooking, 10 liters per person will go to

200,000 people at least. In addition to that, of course, we

are targeting what bottle water, you know, which is not very it's

not a sustainable solution, but it's important in the emergency

situation where all age homes and people from physically and

mentally challenging institutions, you don't expect them to stay in

the queue. That's not possible. How do they go to the water

tanker? How do they go to the Georgia tents? So we are building

a list of those institutions and to give them bottled water to last

them week at a time. And we already stockpiling the bottled

water to do that. So that's the next day. And then, of course, you

ask me, How many, how much water is needed? It's estimated that two

80 million liters of water required per day. The noise had

that facility.

Has about two 10 million liters, but a lot of water is being lost

through leaks. So now there's teams from the business sector and

from the municipality to try to fix those leaks. And we're also

making a call to residents, please check your toilet system, check

your tap, check your garden, senior yard. If there are leaks,

please fix them up. Every liter we save now means a little more for

tomorrow.

Now we have to ask about the cost, Dr Suleman, of all this work that

you're doing. I mean, it comes at a it comes at a sum. Are you able

to share those numbers with us? Firstly and secondly, how is this

process actually funded?

It's Sunday, three. It started off last week, Friday before, before I

went into into function, I met some of my donors, spoke to them

about it, and instantly there's a sun point that it is 5 million

Rand to say you can start you work on an average of 400 to 500,000 a

bowl. Now that's not the drilling only you know, people think it's

so expensive, it's not only the drilling, it's the drilling, the

use test, the water test, the Georgia tents, the pipelines, the

tanks, the cement, the hydrology fees, the cement blocks, the

Georgia tents that go on the piece. Sometimes you get six and

how deep you go, the type of water you find

break. Does it not drill but break, not break? All those are

factors. So we say average of four to 500,000 ran a ball on every

ball that we save money. It means we earmark 10 for the beginning.

We can drill another two or three or four, depending on how much we

save. Georgia tenants could cost anything between five and 8000 men

on

5000 liter tank. Of course, we get special prices from Georgia

themselves. They also donate to us. Unfortunately, in this last

visit to Benson, Mandela Bay, Metro, Volvo, I mean, bw is

looking at him as 30 tanks, if promises, 30 Vodacom, 55 Coke, 20

spa, 40 and other companies are coming on board. Then the

desalination water is not costing anything. Saliva boss is giving it

their cost, and they're also going to give us 5000 by five liter

bottle water. In addition to that, we need tankers to carry the

water. It's expensive. Coke is providing us three water tankers,

huge ones, 35,000 meter carrying capacity. What drivers and they

will pay the fuel costs. And in addition to that, of course,

they're giving us 20 Georgia tanks. And as a partnership,

they're also drilling boreholes in India. It's not where we are, so

we to augment each other, and they've drilled three so far. So

all this augmentation and support cooperation generally helps the

city.

What? Well, Dr Sullivan, you running quite the the operation

here, where is the

Nelson Mandela Bay municipality during this entire process?

Because it would seem that a huge amount of what's happening to save

Nelson Mandela Bay is being run or put together by third parties, if

you

will, the municipality, we have to separate only two components. One

is the politicians. And I mean, they've been having a problem with

them for the last 15 months. Some people saved 15 years. You get the

system right when there is no agreement, no decisions are taken,

no processes are followed. People can't make they can't buy a

student and spend money. It's difficult to buy things that they

need. So that's the one process where there's a political issue on

the other side, we have the civil servants, led by Betty Martin, was

a water engineer and his team of engineers after I spoke to the

municipality back Tuesday in that meeting, of course, the media was

there, the deputy mayor, and even the municipal manager and other

members of the council. It was fantastic. There was full

cooperation and acceptance of what we were going to do without

interference. And then while speaking there, very much. And

then said, I liked my engineering team to have a discussion with

you, and the next morning, on Wednesday, the entire team came.

We worked out things together, and we said, let's share the

responsibility. It's no point now discussing who should have done

what, when and how. There's no time we have a city to save. And

we said, okay,

tell us. We will drill balls. Give us your balls that we've got

somewhere else. We'll put the pumps inside them, and we had full

cooperation. Because instant they gave us a team, they gave us a GPS

called coordinates. They said, yes, the board, you decide what

you want to do. That is said. Another reason I'm saying is

because if there's no decision in the council and no one is made

available, they can't spend they can't act. Their hands are tight.

So even as engineers and civil servants, they want to do

something, they can't do that because there's no funding for

that.