Residents of the North West will benefit from the newly-launched Magalies Water Services Laboratory, which provides services ranging from water quality testing and sampling, research and other services rendered in a scientific laboratory.
The facility will ensure that there is even closer co-operation with its clients, municipalities, mines, industries and agriculture.
This is according to the Water and Sanitation Deputy Minister Pamela Tshwete who launched the state-of-the-art laboratory located in Brits.
“It is important to impress upon all of us that the work of the laboratory will impact most positively on public health in the locality. This will be through the monitoring of drinking water supplies, process monitoring of water and wastewater works and environmental monitoring of rivers and dams.”
She says the laboratory comes at a time when the country is faced with challenges of not just water availability but of good quality water. “As we know, the country has been affected by drought, and this region was not spared from it. The lack of rainfall affected the work of the Water Board as less good quality water was abstracted from the sources. The laboratory that we see here is therefore an intervention that was necessary in the region,” says the deputy minister.
She adds the facility will ensure that there is even closer co-operation with its clients, municipalities, mines, industries and agriculture.
The deputy minister encourages young people to look into opportunities in the water and sanitation sector.
She says the Department of Water and Sanitation develops young people through its Learning Academy. “Part of the Learning Academy Programme speaks to develop Graduate Trainees in the Department of Water and Sanitation in different disciplines relevant to the water and sanitation sector; In-Service Training in partnership with Group 5; as well as the availability of full bursaries to follow different disciplines at numerous universities in the country.
“The various disciplines open for study to strengthen capacity in the sector include water scientists, hydrologists, geo-hydrologists, civil, electrical and chemical engineers, environmental anthropologists, to name but a few,” she says.
