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NMB water losses increase as national intervention fails dismally

By

Dear Editor

In spite of a national intervention in the Nelson Mandela Bay water crisis, the Metro is losing more water due to the municipality’s inability to fix leaks.

In June of this year the Minister of Water and Sanitation announced with great fanfare that as part of a water intervention plan in NMB, Amatola Water was appointed to take over the Metro’s Water and Sanitation sub-directorate. Since then, the Amatola Water Board has made little to no impact on the water crisis and delivered no real results.

Today, 20 September 2022, we conducted an oversight inspection at a massive water leak in the Northern Areas of Nelson Mandela Bay. This leak has been running since November 2021 and is the cause of the Metro losing 1,5 million litres of water per month.

Last week the municipality only fixed 18 of the reported 817 leaks – more than 50% less than the week before, when only 40 of 1018 reported leaks were fixed. There are nearly 2000 unattended water leaks in the Metro.

This the result of the municipality allowing the contract for leak repairs to lapse. Since then water consumption in the Metro has shown an alarming increase. The municipality’s non-revenue and real water losses have increased, with real losses now standing at 39,8%.

The DA and its coalition partners have a plan to tackle the water crisis when we take over government from the inept ANC.

This plan includes:

  • Increase on expenditure to fix water pipes
  • Install water meters at all households. There are currently 6 000 households without water meters.
  • Invest in leak detection technology
  • Emergency procurement for all drought-related projects

The ANC government and Amatola Water have failed to address the water crisis. The municipality spends hundreds of millions of rands on big projects without attending to the basics. The Metro will be spending more than R300 million on the Coegakop Wells Project, which will only deliver 9 megalitres of water per day. The municipality is losing in the region of 100 million litres of water per day. This money should be invested in maintaining and upgrading our water infrastructure, which will save much more water than Coegakop can provide.

We are in your corner fighting for you. Let’s get Nelson Mandela Bay working again.

Regards

Cllr Retief Odendaal
DA NMB Mayoral Candidate

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Alan Straton

Chief Cook, Bottle Washer and Broom Mechanic at MyPE
Passionate about Port Elizabeth and definitely NOT packing for Perth. Alan's ethos is epitomised in the words of Nelson Mandela; "I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society. If need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die." See more articles by Alan.