While parts of South Africa, including the Eastern Cape received heavy rainfall over the past few weeks, a water crisis in Nelson Mandela Bay has continued.
The municipality’s Joseph Tsatsire said that the region has not benefitted from the recent rainfall.
“It’s a very scary situation. I think most of the eastern parts of the Eastern Cape have had rainfall and flooding to a great extent, and communities are actually battling to manage floods. But in this part of the world, we are not receiving any rainfall. In fact, our dam levels are declining at an alarming rate.”
Tsatsire said that catchment areas are not getting any rain.
“Currently our surface dam levels to the western side of the city combined now are sitting at 12.38%, and obviously taking into consideration that storage within those dam levels, we are at just under 5% usable storage.”
He said that the situation is dire.
“It is actually a precarious position that we sit in, taking into consideration all variables, and if we don’t get rainfall within the current rate… we should be running dry from the dams to the west in about 120 days, give or take.”
Tsatire said the municipality was implementing several interventions, among measures taken to reduce consumption.
“Obviously tariffs are one of them, I think we are at what you call partly a punitive tariff measure. All consumers that are using above nine kilolitres a month per household will be penalised hugely. But (there are) other interventions as well, we have now embarked on an address with public campaigns.”
-EWN
In other news – Tipcee speaks on rumours she’s broke after allegedly dumping DJ Tira
South African singer Tipcee has responded to rumours of being down and out telling a local publication that the rumours are false. Following a report from ZiMoja, Tipcee started trending with sources alleging that she is broke after leaving Tira’s Afrotainment. The dancer said they are nothing but false rumours and that she is still signed to Tira’s label.
Speaking to the online publication, Tipcee said, “No it’s not true, and I’m dropping a single soon, and then an EP. The rumours have been trending since yesterday. There was this one friend of mine who was stirring up trouble.” Learn More
