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On Saturday, 13 July 2019, the Gauteng Provincial Office of the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) in partnership with a number of stakeholders cleaned-up the Hennops River in Centurion as part of the department’s Clear Rivers Campaign.

The campaign is a departmental initiative that makes a clarion call on communities, businesses, civil society organisations and individuals to contribute 67 minutes of their time to better the country in honour of former President Nelson Mandela.

A number of participants that rolled up their sleeves to clean the Hennops River included the Impact Hennops Blue Horizon, Fresh NGO, Adventures, Living Word Church Clothes2Good, Aquaevida and McDonald.

DWS’s Adopt-A-River Coordinator, Ms Tebogo Mashiane, paid tribute to all the participants, saying that it is important for communities not only to take a stand against acts of pollution but also play an active role to clean polluted rivers.

Ms Mashiane raised concern about the state of the Hennops River, citing the wanton disposal of rubbish into the river as the cause of the pollution.

“The pollution in the Hennops River is coming from Kaalspruit. We have big issue of informal settlements in Tembisa. There people are erecting shacks right on the riparian zone and are putting rubble in the wetlands so that the land can be stable so that they can then erect shacks,” Ms Mashiane said.

She said  because residents of these informal settlements were not receiving proper municipal services they were resorting to illegal connections to the sewer network and open dumping which cause sewer spillages that discharge directly into the river.

Ms Katherine Fillmore, Director of Hennops Blue Horizon, an organisation that works towards raising awareness to heal the Hennops River, urged communities to stop littering and polluting water resources and to make a conscious consumer decision to use bio degradable products because water is life.

She said keeping the rivers in the country clean will contribute to boosting the economy and that the movement of cleaning the rivers has become incredibly powerful.

“We have partnered with government departments, civil society and corporations in a joint effort to make a change to heal our rivers in South Africa. Together we can. Nelson Mandela said it always seems impossible until its done. When we partner together we can make a difference and heal our rivers,” she said.

Issued by the Department of Water & Sanitation