The Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber has recognised Basil Mugwagwa and Gary Koekemoer for selflessly volunteering their time in assessing and developing recommendations to address issues relating to Nelson Mandela Bay’s sanitation system.
Mugwagwa is a Senior Engineer at Aspen Pharmacare and also serves as the Chamber’s Water and Sanitation Task Team Lead and has been engaged in various Chamber driven water and sanitation related interventions. Koekemoer, in turn serves as WESSA Chairperson, partakes in the Water and Sanitation Task Team interventions and also serves as the Chamber’s Climate Change lead.
Over the past few months, the pair have worked in tandem to undertake significant work, in partnership with the Nelson Mandela Municipality, to assess the sanitation system issues and to develop recommendations to deal with short-term and longer-term priorities. As part of the broad Adopt A MOU which has been signed between the Chamber and the Municipality, specific interventions will be undertaken in relation to the sanitation system in the coming months.
Some key successes of the Water Task team, which is led by Mugwagwa, include the establishment of an Adopt-a-School initiative, which allows member companies to help with fixing faulty or damaged plumbing systems at schools that have been identified as high water consumers. To date, 76 schools and a clinic have been adopted, and work has been completed at 53 of these schools. The recent targeted Adopt A Leak intervention, saved the Metro just under 1,6 million litres of water per day by addressing leaks in impoverished areas in the Bay.
On the Climate Change side, under Koekemoer’s leadership, significant work has been undertaken to get a multi-stakeholder approach in place to enable the development of a climate resilient strategy for Nelson Mandela Bay. This entails ensuring that the Nelson Mandela Bay Climate Change Coalition, which is chaired by Dr Andrew Muir, helps to support and inform the process towards the development of implementation plans. These would ultimately cover key priorities such as long-term water and energy security, the environment (green lungs, golden beaches) and driving for a green economy.
Chamber chief executive Denise van Huyssteen says the Chamber is immensely grateful to Mugwagwa and Koekemoer for their sterling efforts, which is serving the greater good of Nelson Mandela Bay. “The Chamber is a non-profit organisation which is heavily reliant on the support and skills of volunteers to achieve its strategic goals. It is especially through outstanding volunteers like these, who are offering up their expertise and making valuable contributions, that we can as a collective make a positive impact.