It is clear that Nelson Mandela Bay’s ANC-led Coalition of Corruption government has no idea how to address the water challenges facing Nelson Mandela Bay!
Constant water interruptions to the Northern and Western areas of Nelson Mandela Bay is now a daily occurrence. The Metro blames these interruptions mostly on the fact that the daily water consumption is 290 megalitres as opposed to the available 250 megalitres.
The administration tries to lay the blame on the residents of the Metro, and avoid accountability, for the outright failures of the ANC-led Coalition of Corruption to deal with the water crisis.
While Nelson Mandela Bay’s water consumption figures are high, the City loses 46% of its treated water before it reaches residents. The globally accepted levels of water losses are between 5% and 10%
The losses, based on the current 290 megalitre consumption figure given, works out to over 130 megalitres of water being lost, every single day!
If these losses were removed from the equation, the Metro would be well below the 250 megalitre total.
Nelson Mandela Bay’s water situation is dire, our dams are dangerously low and the Nooitgedacht Low Level Water Scheme cannot meet the entire City’s needs, but the situation is being compounded by a lack of management. The ANC-led Coalition of Corruption, and its deployees such as the MMC for Infrastructure and Engineering, Cllr Mongameli Bobani, do not have the political will to fix this mess.
The recent revelation that a contract to procure critical water treatment chemicals has not been renewed since it expired in June is just one example of how the current leadership are handling the situation.
The Municipality has no water crisis plan to mitigate the dire situation in which residents find themselves. They think they can just pass the buck and blame the people for not conserving water.
How are residents supposed to conserve water, if they don’t even have water in their taps?
What is needed is a rapid response team of plumbers to target leaks, and emergency procurement measures to tackle critical aspects, such as the supply of water treatment chemicals.
Critical maintenance and infrastructure investment needs to be made to address these major water losses, as opposed to blaming residents who have in fact been going above and beyond to save water.
The Covid-19 pandemic is sweeping through the Metro and, during this time, the provision of water and proper sanitation is of the utmost importance, but the health of residents is seemingly not a priority to those in charge of the City.
The DA continues to fight to save the lives and livelihoods of the people of Nelson Mandela Bay. We can fix this mess – we have done it before and we can do it again.