OR Tambo district municipality is to spend about R1.3m on safeguarding 22 natural waterfalls and all the beaches in its five local municipalities as part of a coastal safety programme aimed at enhancing tourism in the district.
This was revealed to the Daily Dispatch by district mayor Nomakhosazana Meth who last week hosted the district authority's mayoral lekgotla followed by a strategic planning session at the International Convention Centre in East London.
Meth said although the municipality's core mandate was to provide clean water and sanitation, it had decided to focus on tourism, agriculture and manufacturing as the key drivers of the economy in the district.
“We have decided to recruit 20 waterfall patrollers to keep our waterfalls safe for tourists and residents. They [waterfalls] are some of the biggest tourist attractions in our area,” she said.
The district has about 22 waterfalls including Tina Falls and Tsitsa Falls in the Mhlontlo municipality and Magwa Falls in Lusikisiki, which falls under the Ingquza Hill municipality.
Magwa Falls was in the spotlight in recent years after bodies were discovered there.
Those people had been murdered and thrown off the cliffs above.
Several drownings, especially during the rainy season, have been reported on the Tina River.
Meth said the municipality had also contracted 80 lifeguards to man the shoreline’s beaches across the district and they would work in tandem with a group of 80 patrollers whose job would be to scour the shores for any potential danger that might befall bathers.
“We want to tap into our tourism potential. This is all done to ensure that we expose the beauty of O R Tambo,” she added.
In other spheres, the district municipality is also making promising strides.
It has purchased a fleet of specially-made tractors in Argentina at a cost of R12-million for agri-parks development, and managed to plough 290ha of land near Ncise intended for maize and beans .
The district municipality has partnered with the University of Tshwane on how to improve food production and the University of Limpopo on food processing.
Efforts to revive factories in Vulindlela Heights in partnership with the department of trade & industry were also progressing well, Meth said.
The district municipality received about R285m from national government which is being used to establish boreholes in drought-stricken parts of the district, including rural villages.
Meth described the boreholes as an “interim solution” to the water crisis.
“We are spending millions of rands every year on providing bulk water and sanitation infrastructure across the district in the form of regional water schemes and smaller schemes. However, many of these are multi-year projects, with some expected to take more than three years to complete.”..