NEW water tariffs were announced by the Nelson Mandela Bay Executive Mayor, Mongameli Bobani, last Friday, which will ensure residents save more on their municipal water bills.
Although the metro is still facing drought conditions, the recent rains have increased the dam levels, which has enabled the reduction in the water tariffs to change from Part C to Part B.
“I am happy to share this great news with you today, but also hasten to caution residents to use water sparingly,” said Bobani.
“The recent rains have brought a welcome relief to the municipality and this will translate to the community benefiting from the change in the water tariffs.”
- The new tariffs effectively mean that people will be paying less per kl of water used, and the penalties for people using more than 0.4kl/d is less than was previously the case.
The water tariffs for institutional departments, government departments, commercial and industrial will remain unchanged.
According to Bobani, interactive sessions with communities were held where complaints were reported regarding the water leaks in Nelson Mandela Bay.
“Our precious water is lost every day owing to ageing infrastructure. While we will be working closely with officials in the Water and Sanitation division to improve their response times, we encourage residents to continuously report water and sewerage leaks at our 24-hour call centre that can be reached at 0800 20 50 50.”
In addition, the municipality has made special provisions for more water sources in the city.
The Member of the Mayoral Committee for infrastructure and engineering, electricity and energy, Andile Lungisa, said the metro has enough catchment areas and there are a number of water sources that haven’t been used.
“The municipality’s water augmentation programme is continuing with the implementation of phase three of the Nooitgedacht Low Level Scheme,” said Lungisa.
– KAILIN DANIELS
