{"id":198105,"date":"2025-05-15T00:23:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T22:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/lesotho\/south-africa-lesotho-highlands-water-project-contractor-suspended-for-polluting-rivers\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T00:23:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T22:23:08","slug":"south-africa-lesotho-highlands-water-project-contractor-suspended-for-polluting-rivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/lesotho\/south-africa-lesotho-highlands-water-project-contractor-suspended-for-polluting-rivers\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa: Lesotho Highlands Water Project Contractor Suspended for Polluting Rivers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"12\"><em> 1,400 workers sent home as work on 38km tunnel stalls <\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Kopano Ke Matla Joint Venture, responsible for building a 38-km tunnel connecting two dams in the Lesotho highlands, has had to suspend operations.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Inspections revealed that the company&#8217;s wastewater treatment plants are non-compliant.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Oily and acidic wastewater has been dumped into rivers relied on by rural communities, and into the Katse reservoir which provides drinking water to South Africa.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The company has until 26 May to resolve the&#8230;<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/202505140043.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more on AllAfrica.com<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>South Africa Today Africa \u2013 Southern Africa <a title=\"Lesotho\" href=\"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/category\/southern-africa\/lesotho\/\">Lesotho<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1,400 workers sent home as work on 38km tunnel stalls Kopano Ke Matla Joint Venture, responsible for building a 38-km tunnel connecting two dams in the Lesotho highlands, has had to suspend operations. Inspections revealed that the company&#8217;s wastewater treatment plants are non-compliant. Oily and acidic wastewater has been dumped into rivers relied on by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":198106,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/static\/images\/structure\/aa-logo-rgba-no-text-square.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1406],"tags":[258,256,14771,11327,4717,1407,257,30075,6504,7865,5069,254,4314,6722],"class_list":["post-198105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lesotho","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-contractor","tag-highlands","tag-lesotho","tag-lesotho-news","tag-news","tag-polluting","tag-project","tag-rivers","tag-south","tag-south-africa-today","tag-suspended","tag-water"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/static\/images\/structure\/aa-logo-rgba-no-text-square.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}