NMB Metro
The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality Council has unanimously approved a reprioritization of more than R120 million from less urgent projects to support the water and sanitation capital budget to assist drought mitigation water infrastructure plans.
The decision was taken at a full Council meeting on Thursday.
The City is currently experiencing one of its worst droughts in history with the combined level of the main supply dams at less than 14%
The Impofu Dam, which is the biggest dam that the City extracts water from, is also technically empty and was decommissioned last month.
The Metro says in a statement that due to this dire situation, various drought intervention projects have been identified to benefit from the funds in support of uninterrupted water supply to both residents and the business sector.
Part of the funds will be utilised to maximise the Nooitgedagt water that is received from the Gariep dam, which is 450 km away and currently 100.5% full.
The Water and Sanitation Sub-directorate has already started a number of critical civil, mechanical and electrical projects at various Water Treatment Works and Water Pump stations in order improve the municipal water network system.
The Municipality says that one of the reasons for the reprioritization of funds is to ensure that current projects do not experience delays due to non-availability of funds.
