Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan has set aside R225-million in the medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF) to tackle acid mine drainage (AMD) and its associated threats in Gauteng.

This comes after the Cabinet approved recommendations made by a team of experts on the situation at its meeting last week.

Gordhan, who delivered his Budget speech in Parliament on Wednesday, said that Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa would take the lead in consulting with industry on a shared and coordinated response.

Funds from government were already available to deal with the situation in the Western basin of Johannesburg, where acid water first decanted in 2002. Currently, AMD was decanting at a rate of 50-million litres a day, of which, less than a third of the toxic water was being pumped and treated by miners operating in the area.

Canals are now being constructed in Florida, to ensure that water do not run into mine shafts.

Planning Minister Trevor Manuel said at a post-Cabinet briefing on Tuesday that work on designs for a pump station for the Central basin would start immediately, to allow pumping to start in a year’s time. The AMD is expected to start decanting in the Central basin by June next year.

The situation in the Eastern basin was said to be under control for the time being.

Some of the recommendations proposed by the team of scientific experts included implementing ingress control measures, reducing the costs to deal with AMD, improving water quality management through neutralisation and metal removal in the short term, and the removal of salt loads from river systems in the medium to long term.

Meanwhile, Gordhan also announced additional bulk-water infrastructure MTEF allocations, including R1-billion for the completion of the De Hoop dam bulk distribution pipelines, R952-million for regional bulk infrastructure, R520-million for the completion of the Nandoni pipeline and R450-million for emergency drought relief in the Nelson Mandela Bay metropolitan area.