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The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality says residents should cut back on water consumption by at least 10% to avoid a looming water crisis.
Metro councillor, Andile Mfunda told a media briefing on Tuesday that the Department of Water Affairs has predicted that the metro would be in a water crisis by 2015, and that since July it had already restricted water supply to the municipality by 10 percent.
He said the volume of water stored in the metro's major dams would be depleted within 18 months if current consumption continued with no significant inflow during this period...
"We have also got a program in our wards where we are using the extended public works program so that we can address this issue of water in the Nelson Mandela Metro. We are supposed to work together so that we can address the issue, because if we are in trouble the city will be in danger" Mfunda said.
The municipality's director for water and sanitation, Barry Martin, says prevention is better than cure, and an immediate effort to save water will have a long term positive effect.
"If we don't do that we will have to put punitive water restrictions in place again. We are now at 84% and we would like to encourage people to use less water now already to prevent things like that from happening. So we are appealing now to consumers already to cut back on water consumption back now and therefore we can sustain our current dam supplies until we get good rain in the future" Martin said
