Africa: The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality has met and far exceeded the challenge set by Water and Sanitation Minister Hon. Senzo Mchunu to eliminate a backlog of recurring water leaks.
This was confirmed this morning during a site visit to the Churchill dam in Kouga.
Since the commitment to speed the repair of leaks was announced on June 20, 2022, a total of 3655 water leaks have been successfully repaired in just 14 days.
Over the weekend, the Executive Mayor, Cllr. Eugene Johnson led a brigade of water leaks repair teams in Kariega in an effort to encourage them to speed up their activities as part of the city’s strategy to push back day zero.
“It is up to each of us to do our part to win this battle against water leaks,” said Mayor Johnson.
“When we do so, we will ensure that every drop is saved and that water is made available equally to all residents of the bay,” she said emphatically.
“We must bring home the idea that water is life and that we should all do our best to limit our water consumption immediately by aiming for less than 50 litres per day per person,” she said.
The NMB JOC Spokesperson, Luvuyo Bangazi, also commented on the progress in the war against water leaks.
“Throughout the world, water leaks are a present phenomenon in water distribution, but Nelson Mandela Bay and South Africa face a double whammy of ageing infrastructure and the scourge of vandalism,” said Bangazi.
He went on to explain that eliminating all water leaks is an ambitious aim. “In actuality, leaks will arise, and as the Metro improves communication, more leaks will be discovered and reported, so we must react faster by shutting them down without wasting a single second,” he said.
Bangazi also discussed the trend in water consumption. He said that the amount of water produced for consumption on Tuesday morning was 249ml/d, which is a slight increase from Monday’s 246ml/d.
The amount of water that could be used in dams also went up slightly, from Monday’s 2.29 percent to Tuesday’s 2.32 percent.
“The trend is encouraging. “We see the usual fluctuations, but overall, over a hundred-day period, there is a definite downward trend in the seven-day average,” said Bangazi.
“We continue to ask water users to use water sparingly, to recycle grey water for sanitation, and not to flush if it’s yellow. That way you’ll save between 5 and 9 litres,” he said.
