Historic meeting with leaders of Tshwane, Johannesburg and
Ekurhuleni to discuss the rehabilitation of the Kaalspruit Catchment photo supplied
By Cllr Nasiphi Moya
Executive Mayor of Tshwane
On Monday, 26 May 2025, we held a historic meeting with Johannesburg and
Ekurhuleni to discuss the rehabilitation of the Kaalspruit Catchment.
The Kaalspruit is an area of water that conjoins river streams from Joburg, Tshwane and Johannesburg.
Over the years, with rapid urbanisation and increasing number of informal settlements near embankments, the river stream from Kaalspruit as deteriorated in quality.
The numerous causes of pollution include raw sewerage, municipal waste and debris.
Illegal sanding and sewer mining have also compounded the situation, leading to excessive erosion and the silting up of the entire system all the way past Hennops River and down to Hartbeespoort Dam.
It is with this context in mind that we were honoured by the presence of the Executive Mayor of Ekurhuleni, Cllr Nkosiphile Xhakaza, and the MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Development in the City of Johannesburg, Cllr Jack Sekwaila, and flanked by my Members of the Mayoral Committee, our City Manager, Mr Johann Mettler, with his management team.
We were equally pleased with the attendance of the Gauteng Provincial Government’s Head of Department for Environment, Mr Blake Mosley-Lefatola.
This is the spirit of collaboration that will stand us in good stead to ensure that Gauteng cultivates a healthy environment in which all our residents can live and thrive.
We had a candid dialogue about the state of the Kaalspruit, the reasons for its
condition, what is being done, and what the gaps are.
At the forefront of the discussion was an overwhelming sense that everyone is deeply concerned about the state of the Kaalspruit as a reflection of the common and shared struggles with population growth, the gap between service delivery demand and supply, and the throttling
effect of the resource gap.
The approach adopted by the three metros is to set up an inter-metro multi-disciplinary City Kalaspruit Task Team comprised of senior municipal officials from the respective metros that will report back to the three Mayors on a regular basis.
The immediate priority is to align existing plans and create a combined proposal for the required interventions and funding requirements which the three Mayors will champion.
We have also requested the involvement of the Gauteng Department of Environment
informed by its role as the custodian of the environment resources of the province and in line with the Kaalspruit Climate Resilient Catchment Management Plan developed by the Department.
I believe that our meeting, on Monday, was a defining moment for the Tshwane
administration. We have, for too long, been plagued by the declining state of the Hennops River and overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness because of our inability to address the upstream causes of pollution.
By being able to cross the blame-game hurdle, the three metros are able to accept that we are in this together and commit to doing whatever it will take to fix it.