The Minister of Water and Sanitation, Senzo Mchunu accompanied by Executive Mayor of NMBMM, Eugene Johnson had a series of visits in Nelson Mandela Bay Metro Municipality (NMBMM) assessing dam levels and water supply infrastructure to avoid the upcoming threat of Day Zero and later conducted a community engagement at Walmer Multi- Purpose Centre to find buy-in from the community members.
The Algoa Water Supply System with dams supplying NMBMM declined because of poor catchment to 12.1% currently. Minister’s delegation visited Impofu Dam at Humansdorp and Kouga Dam at Patensie where it was clear that there is little or no water to abstract in both dams. Impofu dam is sitting at 10.1% this week and Kouga dam at 12.8%.
The Minister said, “the Department working with NMBMM will have to ration water to the communities and establish a task team that will work with the municipalities”. He further informed communities that 1000 water leakages have been closed. He also encouraged water users in NMBMM to use water sparingly and save it for future generations.
Community members were given an opportunity to engage the Minister on finding ways of tackling water challenges in NMBMM. Community members revealed that the problem of NMBMM is the poor attendance of water leaks and adviced the Minister to fast track the process of closing water leakages. As such there are houses that are contributing to water losses in NMBMM because of poor installation of geysers. Some community members advised the Minister that the youth in Nelson Mandela Bay can assist in closing the water leaks.
For more information, contact Sputnik Ratau, Spokesperson for the Department of Water and Sanitation on 082 874 2942
