Durban - A Disaster Risk Management (DRM) team from the City of Cape Town is on standby should their services be required in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro.
The metro is facing a drought crisis. According to reports, water consumption has increased in recent days, putting pressure on the system.
Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said he wrote to he metro's mayor, Eugené Johnson, offering Cape Town’s technical advice, assistance, and disaster management support.
"The threat of our own potential Day Zero in 2018 is still fresh in the memories of Capetonians as we, too, faced a devastating multi-year drought. Thankfully, we avoided this, and we have learnt many valuable lessons from that crisis. In the hope that there is still time to avoid the worst in Nelson Mandela Bay, the City of Cape Town would like to offer our help," he said.
Hill-Lewis said teams made up of DRM officials as well as technical and engineering teams, available to assist in whichever way possible.
NMB Development Agency's, Luvuyo Bangazi said they were going through around 60 megalitres per day which was of concern.
The Impofu Dam was decommissioned last week due to low water levels.
Speaking to Cape Talk, Bangazi said water available from other dams in the metro were at 11.94%. He added authorities were drilling boreholes across the city, hoping to get more than 40 megalitres per day until next month.
"At this rate, we're almost on double the amount of water we should be utilising. We understand life must continue, but if we continue this trend, we're going to be in a very precarious position. You have officials coming to install the devices but who are threatened or chased away. Sometimes they cannot access the devices because of high walls and security. We are also doing more to address water leaks.
“By the end of this week, the city wants to clear 3 000 water leaks in the system. So this week, we have an army of technicians combing the city to reduce these leaks," Bangazi said.
IOL