A photo on Hya Matla’s Facebook page in 2019.

According to a notice by Magalies Water distributed this week it intends to award the tender to remove hyacinth and debris from Hartbeespoort to Hya Matla Organics, the same company that received a R25 million investment from Coca-Cola for the removal of hyacinth in 2019.
In the notice, dated 30 August, interested parties are given five days to object. The notice only surfaced this week.
The six companies that were considered for the tender were:
1. Prukgau Trading and Projects
2. Hyamatla Organics
3. Agreenco Environmental Projects
4. Thekga -Mih Joint Venture
5. Harties Foundation NPC
6. Prukgau Trading and Projects
“Responses were evaluated according to the criteria stated in the solicitation. We announce our intent to award a contract to Hyamatla Organics,” the notice reads.
“The successful company is instructed not to begin work relating to the project until both the recipient and Magalies Water sign the contract.”
The notice invites interested parties to contact the Procurement Office for additional information or questions about the evaluation process. “Any protests of this decision must be submitted to the Procurement Office within five calendar days after the issuance of this notice, no later than 12:00. The protest must be in writing, clearly identify the solicitation number and title, and detail the nature of the protest.”
Magalies Water said last week a team to remove the floating plants and debris will be deployed before the end of September 2023. “Concomitant to this, the implementation of novel technology for the remediation of the dam will also be enacted before the end of September 2023,” spokesperson David Magae said.
John Wesson of WESSA said that the new development once again showed no “transparency whatsoever”. “It was with great disappointment that we received information through a third party that a tender had been awarded for the cleaning of the dam on 30 August giving 5 days to comment or object. Once again with no public or even the long-suffering forum\ committees involvement,” he said. “The questions now arising are what part of the allocated budget has been given to this process? What about the integrated management plan? Where does all the work around the dam by individuals, estates and the Centre for Biological Control (CBC) fit in? And what about the growing sludge layer just below the water surface?”At a meeting held earlier this year in Hartbeespoort and attended by various stakeholders, the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) and the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) revealed that approximately R24 million specifically allocated to the dam was left unspent over the 2022/3 financial year.“The information came from senior managers at the department. They were going to try and spend some money before the end of the financial year and were talking about booms and other things,” Wesson said.
DWS spokesperson Wisane Mavas said at the time that a budget had been allocated to clear the dam, and an amount would be designated annually to clean the dam. She said the initiative only started in January 2023 and the funds have not been used yet.
Magalies Water did not answer Kormorant’s enquiry about the intention to award the tender to Hya Matla or the “novel technology” to be used at the time of going to press.