Chamber initiative positively impacting city’s fight against water leaks
As the water crisis impacting the Metro continues to escalate, the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber’s Adopt-a-School initiative has made a significant impact as businesses continue to strengthen their efforts in fixing water leaks in a number of schools in the Metro.
To date, 11 businesses in the Metro have adopted 35 schools which had been identified as high water consumers due to faulty or damaged plumbing systems at their premises. The Adopt-a-School programme is the Business Chamber’s intervention aimed at assisting the Metro in its citywide water preservation efforts. Business support has played a major role in fixing faulty infrastructure or installing new one to prevent water wastage at certain schools. Some of the schools are beneficiaries of water tanks which will assist in rain harvesting to supplement their supply.
Water leaks are one of the major challenges for the Metro due to its aging infrastructure accounting for around 35% of water losses, of which 10% of this loss happens at schools As an intervention, it has prioritised fixing water leaks but is still facing a huge backlog. Though not yet finalised, the Eastern Cape Corporate Governance and Traditional Affairs is in the process of procuring a 5-day training product from the Eastern Cape Training Centre for the training of 24 Community Work Programme participants. An engineer has already been appointed as the technical mentor on-site to oversee maintenance and repairs of water leaks at schools.
Currently, the dams supplying the Metro are sitting at 11, 63%. The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality has warned that the Bay could be without water by December especially if residents and businesses fail to reduce their daily consumption levels by 20% and in the high risk areas by 40%. Since November 2015, the NMBM has been experiencing a dry period of below average monthly rainfall, resulting in declining dam levels and water storage capacities.
“It is critical that residents and businesses should adhere to the current water restrictions as a matter of urgency. We need to take a collective responsibility because if we can reduce our consumption now, we can stretch the water in our dams until the city’s distribution and augmentation projects reach a critical point of targeted completion in April 2022,” said Denise van Huyssteen, the CEO of the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber.
She added that the Chamber had issued a strong appeal to national government to intervene in the contractual issues relating to the finalisation of Phase 3 of the Nooitgedacht scheme which was supposed to have already come on stream to increase much needed water supply to the city.
Through the Adopt-a-School initiative, businesses have donated water tanks to 16 schools and to one clinic to ensure access to emergency water supply in the KwaNobuhle community.
This resulted in the bulk of plumbing work being carried out at some schools, while new meter readings had to be installed in others. This intervention will go long way in preserving water in these schools and will enable for water supply to be prolonged.
Other companies have installed boreholes at their adopted schools to ensure there is a steady supply of water, while some have assisted with painting the school buildings.
Van Huyssteen added that the Business Chamber expected the number of schools adopted to increase as more companies complete a needs analysis of some of the identified schools to ascertain where they could assist and finalise the adoption process.