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Water usage restrictors will be installed at households across the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro (NMBM) whose monthly consumption exceeds 15 kilolitres (500 litres per day).
Addressing a media briefing at City Hall on Tuesday, Metro Mayor, Nqaba Bhanga announced the city's short, medium and long term intervention plans to mitigate the ongoing drought.
Amongst those includes the restrictor disk's which residents who exceed the monthly limit, will be liable to pay for at R3 500 rand each.
According to the Metro, the fitting of water restrictors will be unrolled across the City as warnings to high water users fell on deaf ears.
He says plans to accelerate public awareness campaigns on reducing water usage will soon be underway.
Mayor Bhanga also urged residents to take responsibility and manage their water consumption.
The Mayor told his followers on Twitter that he would be installing the restrictors at his own house in order to lead by example.
He says the Metro is in a crisis as our dams are currently at a combined 17.55% of capacity.
Bhanga urged residents to save water in order to avoid "Day Zero".
The Metro says Nelson Mandela Bay is restricted by the Department of Water and Sanitation to extract only 268 million litres of water per day and currently the city is using about 300 million litres per day.
Mayor Bhanga says his office identified the issue of water leaks as an urgent priority.
He says they have developed a dashboard to monitor the progress of fixing leaks as well as the turnaround time to respond.
Bhanga says incompetent officials will be held accountable.
The Metro is currently losing 25% of its water through leaks.
