Bay cuts its costly water leak losses

THE Nelson Mandela Bay Metro has made massive inroads in curbing its water losses bill over the last four months, the city claimed yesterday.

It attributed its successes in cutting the water losses figure by 14 percentage points since September to a vigorous six-week campaign which saw staff repairing leaks – particularly in poor areas – over weekends and installing new water meters at some homes.

Their efforts were bolstered by the water restrictions in place.

However, the municipality is still losing water due to a shortage of staff to deal with the leaks backlog, theft and aging infrastructure.

Director of water and sanitation Barry Martin told councillors at the municipal public accounts committee meeting yesterday that the water losses figure stood at 29% of water consumed in the city.

This has dropped from 43% in September and 33% in November.

Martin said staff recently attended what he termed a “leak fixing festival” where 1 800 leaks were repaired over the six weekends.

Martin said a service provider was recently appointed to help with the ongoing war on leaks.

“Since there is no dedicated staff to deal with water losses, we appointed a contractor,” he said.

“Consumption is still too high. We are using about 300ML [megalitres] a day [as a metro]; we should reduce to 250ML,” Martin said.

A full report on the rand value of the water losses will be given to the Mpac later this month. — TMG