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The African Christian Democratic Party says it is clear that the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality isn’t doing enough to save the Metro from day zero.
In a statement ACDP lone councillor, Lance Grootbom claims that the Metro loses 30 % of its water to either illegal connections, theft or through leaks.
Grootboom said he was also reliably informed that as of the 30th of June the municipality had 9000 leaks with approximately 120 new leaks reported daily.
The Metro’s Mamela Ndamase also confirmed to Algoa FM News that just under 16 000 leaks had been fixed so far and there was a backlog of just under 9000 leaks.
Ndamase said seven contractors had been assigned to work on the existing leaks.
Grootboom said one contractor was assigned to each cluster in the Metro but this was to deal with major leaks.
He also said the Metro had 38 qualified plumbers which he added was shocking for a city with 1.2 million residents.
“It is no wonder that water leaks are continuing to rise,” he said.
In a letter to the Municipality, Grootboom has suggested, as part of the interventions, for qualified plumbers to be recruited in communities so the current plumbers can deal with the larger leaks.
Grootboom also suggested the Metro do a door -to -door water campaign where officials would be out in the communities, assisting in identifying and reporting leaks.
Mamela said that a water awareness campaign was on the Metro's cards where people would be educated about the dire water crises.
She said as part of the drought management plan to mitigate day zero, the Municipality declared the Bay a disaster area and this allowed national and provincial government to step in.
Ndamase said this was done before the announcement of day zero on the 4th of September.
The Metro has attributed day zero to the lack of rainfall.
The Municipality’s four main supply dams are currently at 18,91% of total combined capacity.
Residents and businesses have been warned to use water sparingly to avoid taps running completely dry.
