kougademocrat

The dams that supply Nelson Mandela Bay and Kouga Municipalities are close to empty, with very little rain expected over the next few months.

The supply dams are at 22.16% of capacity.

The Kouga dam is at 12.29%, followed by the Impofu dam (16.45%), Loerie dam (29.44%), Groendal dam (37.20%), and Churchill dam at 68.93%.

“The last 10% of water in any dam is unusable, which means that, technically, dam levels are at 12.16%

The Metro is also using 300 megalitres of water per day while the daily consumption level should be 250 megalitres, said DA Eastern Cape leader, Nqaba Bhanga.

Bhanga said that since August 2018, the NMB Municipality has been aware that a barge is needed to extract what is left of the potable water in the Impofu dam.

“The barge will take five weeks to become operational but nothing has been done to make this happen.

The DA-led Kouga Municipality stand in sharp contrast with the failures of Nelson Mandela Bay Metro and has been doing excellent work in spending a R151-million drought disaster grant.

The municipality has already spent more than R108-million (71.79%) and still has R42.6-million available,” Bhanga added.

“The remaining funds have been committed to projects that were due for completion by mid-June 2020, but have now stalled due to Coronavirus lockdown regulations.”

Kouga successes:

• Developing new boreholes at Jeffreys Bay, Humansdorp, Patensie, and Hankey.
• The Jeffreys Bay Water Treatment Works and Kruisfontein Water Treatment Works are being upgraded.
• Ongoing interventions to improve Water Conservation and Demand Management include extensive leak repairs.
• Through extensive communications and awareness campaigns daily water consumption has been reduced from 30 megalitres to 17 megalitres.
• “Contractors have closed all drought project sites due to lockdown regulations. The municipality has started a process to fast track drought relief projects by recalling the contractors and facilitating the successful procurement of goods and services.”

Kouga Action Plan:

• Urgently confirm that drought projects are essential services in order for the municipality to legally complete work in line with current legislation. The municipality will write to DWS to obtain guidance in this regard.
• Consultants and contractors must make preparations for the re-commencement of construction work.
• Consultants must provide the municipality with an updated project cost that reflects the anticipated impact from claims and provide possible mitigation measures.

“If we all work together we can avert this water crisis and successfully fight the Covid-19 pandemic,” Bhanga said.

Tags: day zero, kouga dam

This entry was posted on April 24, 2020 at 5:09 am and is filed under kouga municipality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.