Imtiaz Sooliman – Gift of the Givers lends helping hand
AI: Summary ©
The representative discusses the challenges of the Eastern Cape region, including low dam levels and dangerous road conditions. They have already drilled two ball holes in specific areas and are working on fixing leaks. The process of drilling and fixing leaks is important, and the use of groundwater for quick intervention is necessary to save water. The speakers also discuss various issues related to water and waste management, including road construction, roads, and recycling. They mention the need for more water to alleviate road congestion and suggest using brackwater to prevent damage to homes and businesses.
AI: Summary ©
Some cape is running dry. It's implemented six hour water outages
last week. The cuts are expected to continue for eight weeks after
one of the region's four reservoirs dried up. Gift of the
givers has been helping the province with the water issues.
Founder and chairperson of gift of the givers, Imtiaz Suleiman, joins
us now for an update. Thank you so much for your time. Mr. Suleiman,
we do appreciate it. I think this conversation must be a broad one,
because we need to understand how much the gift of the givers are
actually doing. But let's start off with the Eastern Cape. The
situation is very dire. We had the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality on
the show earlier on, and they've told us that the dam levels are
dangerously low. How much work have you done in that particular
province?
Good evening. Heidi, yes, the dam levels are dangerously low. We've
engaged the municipality, the business chamber, actually we were
called by them by the municipality, and business chamber
at the end of May, and then we went then, and we went again last
week, but there's measures that have to be taken which have to be
practical. It has to be done right now. And if there's no rain, the
dams are not full and there's no water. The only other option is
two one is to save water from being wasted and there's a lot of
leaks in area, and secondly, to use groundwater. And in the
process, we found the third option, which I'll talk about now,
in terms of the leaks. Fortunately, the business chamber,
driven by big companies, I've have put teams have given contracts,
and from tomorrow, I think they'll be going out to fix as many leaks
as possible. They're also fixing leaks besides the road on the on
in schools, giving contracts to fix leaks in the schools itself,
all that can be a substantial saving. Every liter saved means
there's more water for another day. But the public itself, you
know, we make a call to them. I'm not saying they're using too much
water, but every half a liter they can save will be beneficial. If
they have leaks in their own homes, in the toilets, in the
taps, in the garden, please attend to that. That will all benefit.
You have to work together. There's no other way of saving that city.
The second aspect, beside the leaks is groundwater, and that's
where we've come in. We've already drilled two balls in a school
called Alpha Primary School. There's a way in which we are
drilling these balls. We look at which are the red zones, which
means those areas will lose water first. So there's no point in
other areas, they will lose water in 30 days time. We have to go
where water will be lost first, because we need to intervene
rapidly. And whilst doing that, you gotta see the type of rock,
the geology in those areas. Is it worth running? Are we going to get
good water? Are the years going to be good? Can you drink that water?
So we are following a system. All the areas have been plotted out.
We visited the sites ourselves. I've been there for a whole week
in the area, and we started drilling. And we fortunately
getting good water. We bring a second drilling machine in
tomorrow, and we've got additional people on site that we brought in,
additional people who live there are not part of our team, but
remaining part of our team to speed up the process. So that's
the first thing. Start drilling balls in special areas, especially
schools. Hawaii schools, some of the schools have 1100 children,
huge compliment of staff. And I think a school like malaba, it has
four informal settlements around it. Those children come with
busses from eight different areas, and many of them come with taxis,
which means you can give the children. They can take water to
their homes from all those areas. Give it to the teachers. They can
take it home. And you can give communities around the school. So
you try to reach, spread your reach as far as possible, to reach
as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. So that has
to be very good in terms of the planning. And then the last point
I mentioned to you, that is, there's other things also, but the
last well, it's two more points. One is, every place you go to,
there are boards that have been built some years ago, but people,
they don't, it has not been used. They've been closed for some
reason, again, in partnership with the municipality, and we've got a
very good arrangement with them. We asked them, Do you have these
balls, and do you know of them? And two nights ago, at midnight,
we got the whole list, and the next day, they gave us people from
the municipality who actually took us around and said, Here's the
ball, here's the ball. And we found them, and tomorrow we're
doing the same thing. The advantage of that is you don't
have to drill. It's ready. You put a pump in, and you got water
immediately. And that's a big crisis. So it's water immediately.
And the last point, and we can discuss some other issues, is,
whilst we're in the business chamber on Friday, we we heard
that Sally boss has got a desalination plant. We went and
met the MD on site, and immediately they're offering us
500,000
liters of water through the desalination plant daily, and
that's what you need. You need millions of liters of water to get
to people very, very quickly. They are the things, but these are the
most important things. Certainly, I think it's phenomenal work what
you're doing. I had witnessed a borehole in being drilled in
KwaZulu Natal because of the floods there at a school. I just
can't remember the school's name, but it's amazing how much actually
goes into.
Drilling a borehole. I'm not sure if you have the figures, Mr.
Suleiman, but how many boreholes are we looking at, especially in
areas that are in desperate need of water in the Eastern Cape? I
know you're saying that a list was given to you, but how much are we
looking how many are we looking at?
Eastern Cape is huge. We got balls all over so let's stick to Nelson
Mandela Bay Metro. You know, we got balls in Harappan at Makanda.
We need several schools. We've been drilling lots of boats. But
our focus right now is on the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro itself.
There's a list at this close to 50 or 60 balls given to us. But when
you have that list again, there's certain criteria. Number one, how
far is it from the community? If it's too far away in some isolated
place, it doesn't make sense to develop that goal. Secondly, is an
electrical supply nearby, because you need electricity to drive the
pub. If there isn't, there's no point. Certainly, the type of rock
that is drilled into if that rock is going to produce brackish
water, no, you can't use it. So from the first three the that we
saw, the one was in Galvin Dale stadium, excellent site, good
borehole,
1000s of people around it. Perfect place to expand it to to set it up
and to use it, you know, reach lots of people, and people can
come their vehicles and collect water from there. The other place
that we got request from was the canine unit. The saps canine unit,
they called us on June 16 and said, What? There is no water for
the dogs. What's going to happen here? But we got a borehole, but
it's not working. So the same day, we went there. Very good looking
borehole. We sit in a special team. Excellent results. And we
said, If we open your ball, we pump the water into your water
management system. Within the entire police services, in the
canine unit, there'll be water for the dogs. But we have one request.
We need to run the pipelines from the wall to outside your your
facility, so people in a place called Forest Hill can also get
water. So again, you make water available to the community. So
that's our teams are busy doing that right now. And of course, we
looked at Elizabeth Duncan psychotic hospital. They say water
comes and goes. We looked at a John Pearson TV hospital. Water
comes and goes. So areas like that where the water comes and goes,
the combination of balls that are available from the municipality
and the balls that we are going to drill. And then in addition to
that, we asked the municipality for points. Where do they want to
put JoJo tanks? We brought in 100 JoJo tanks already overnight and
over the weekend to the and we will put those in different points
where maximum need is, where there is no ball from the municipality,
where we haven't drilled a ball, where there's no time to drill a
ball, but you need to get water quickly to the people. And the
advantage of that is the desalination plant water can go
coke has given us 330, 5000 liter tankers, which can carry a lot of
water, and you can put it into all those areas. And one additional
point, we decided this morning, when we heard that the water is
going to run short institutions, old age homes. Homes are
physically mentally challenged, often they just where there's no
ball, or they can't go to the tanker to collect water. We are
now going to distribute bottled water to them to keep them going
for at least two to three weeks, whilst the water issues are being
sorted out from the dam, while the disability try to pump more water
out just to give them some less lifespan, you know, some some
time. And we're going to start doing that from the world.
Certainly the situation is rather dire. And just lastly, Mr.
Suleiman, perhaps we can speak about the rest of the country. I
know you've done extensive work here in gauteng, for example, at
Rahima Musa hospital and Helen Joseph Hospital. Hospitals are
also in desperate need. I do know that the Human Rights Commission
was alerted on Monday about there being no water at Rahima Musa, so
it's a big concern, but perhaps a picture for the rest of the
country, even in KwaZulu Natal where people are in desperate need
of water because of the damage to infrastructure from those floods,
well water requirement is huge all over the country. It's not only
because of how tank. I mean, it's it's lot of areas, like, for
example, if we say some of the dams are full, but there's no the
water management systems, pipes are not working. So even there's a
lot of water in the dam, it can't get rich to people. So in Quark
qua and parts of free state, we've been drawing drilling huge number
of balls there. And again, if you can get an existing ball, we
prefer using that. We've drilled balls in many of the hospitals in
Eastern Cape. The drought situation is way beyond, you know,
Nelson, Mandela Bay only. We've got 15 boreholes in Makanda, we've
got 12. It's left in that. We put in two in club blood. We put in
seven in Adelaide, you know, we and we put in some in Bedford, in
a place called trommy, there was no borehole. People are dependent
on water coming from Adelaide. We put in a borehole water windmill
to drive it. We're identifying other areas to put it in, and then
in Tonga, where you went, we put in 15 balls there, and then
another two we cleaned out. And right now there are other areas.
The whole of itekwinin now is going to be on on water
because the pipes from the neglect.
Have been destroyed, and there's going to take a whole year to fix.
So there's going to be water rationing in many areas. There's
two main issues with water rationing and water security.
Throughout the country, if schools don't get enough water, sanitation
and toilets or 1100 kids in school becomes a major problem.
Like Musa, hospitals that don't get enough water, there's high
risk of deflection, can't clean, can't sanitize, can't wash.
Operations to become difficult washing, along with all those are
huge challenges. We have to look at those options a little later
and see how they're going. But besides tongat and Durban, there
are areas that never had water even before the floods came. We
busy drilling in escort, in amzinto, in in amalti, in Berlin,
and we've got earmarked drilling from Madden Hill, South Coast, and
it's just never going to stop. There's so many areas that water
in South Africa, and we're just going to keep going.
Well. We wish you all the best, and we send you lots of strength
and support, because I think what you're doing is absolutely
phenomenal. They always say that water is life, and many of these
communities just struggle on a daily basis. So we thank you so
much for constantly being that gift to many communities that was
the gift of the givers. MTS Suleiman speaking to us about the
work they are doing in various communities, because we do know
that there is definitely a water crisis, especially in Nelson
Mandela Bay. Now emergencies.