Ramaphosa along with Gauteng Premier Panayza Lesufi, Minister of water and sanitation Senzo Mchunu and the City of Tshwane's Mayor Cilliers Brink began the visit at the Rooiwal plant in Tshwane, where he met with officials who operate the plant.

The Rooiwal plant has been pointed at as the centre of the crisis facing the Hammanskraal community, who have lived without safe drinking water for years.

Addressing the residents and the media at large on Thursday morning, Ramaphosa said it is going to take R4 billion to address the water issues in the area while also taking into account that part of the plant is being used to clean sewage that eventually gets processed for later consumption.

"This is precisely what is going to be attended to urgently because there have been all those errors and mistakes, which I have admitted to, and they must be corrected," Ramaphosa said.

Meanwhile, a city official in charge of Tshwane's waste plants told Ramaphosa that most of the pipes were not functioning. 

So we have a lot of leaks and we had done some work to fix the pipework and have it all done but the project didn't run to completion and stopped at 60% because of tender processes," the official, who identified himself only as David, told the president.

The City of Tshwane has budgeted more than R400 million over three years for the renovations, and R4 billion will be sourced from a loan from the Development Bank of Southern Africa but the loan needs a guarantee from the National Treasury. 

If the guarantee is clinched and a new contractor could be employed, the project to complete the phases would then start in September and the whole project would be completed by 2026.