The Democratic Alliance in Nelson Mandela Bay has blamed the city's water crisis on poor management and the inability to manage water resources.
Newly elected metro Caucus Leader Jonathan Lawack was speaking at a media briefing at the party's headquarters in Walmer on Thursday.
He said the municipality's failure to spend the R200 million of drought disaster grant funding allocated by National Treasury was highly detrimental to the Metro.
Lawack said in addition to this, there were also 11 000 water leaks reported across Nelson Mandelay Bay. "Our water losses according to our annual report for 2018/2019 was almost 44%. For the six months of this financial year our water losses stand at 46,6%. This means that 46,6% of the water that comes from the dams, into our reticulation systems, gets lost before it gets to our taps."
DA provincial leader Nqaba Bhanga said managing the water crises is not an issue of having no money, but rather that of a lack of poor planning and spending. "
We have a crisis of people who are not spending the allocated grant money, and if we do not use this money National Treasury will take it back,"
Bhanga further added that the city has failed to communicate with its residents on the seriousness of the Metro's water shortage.
"Since August 2018 the municipality has been aware that a barge would need to be procured to extract what is left of the potable water in the Impofu Dam which currently lies at 16,7%," he said.
According to figures released by the Municipality on Thursday, the total combined capacity of Nelson Mandela Bay's four main supply dams is at an average 28.5%
Bhanga said the DA would be writing to Council Speaker Buyelwa Mafaya to urgently convene a special council meeting to find a solution to the water crisis.
