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Pretoria - As the country endured crippling blackouts, many South Africans also had to bear the brunt of water shortages caused by load-shedding and high water demand, which depleted some reservoirs in Gauteng, the economic hub of the country.
In October, as the country went deeper into the loadshedding crisis, three municipalities were outed for having the highest water consumption rate.
The City of Johannesburg takes up to a least 35% of the water supply from Rand Water.
In comparison, Ekurhuleni takes 24%, the City of Tshwane 15% while Emfuleni municipality takes the least, with 6%.
One of the country’s water utilities, Rand Water, which supplies bulk water to at least 18 municipalities, said it didn’t dictate which area within a municipality should have its water cut, nor does it determine the duration of the cuts.
In May, the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality, which includes the coastal city of Gqeberha, dams were depleted and much of the remaining water was of poor quality and the overuse of chemicals to treat it has led to the deaths of at least two children, livestock and vegetation, Bloomberg reported.
The water shortages have brought back memories of Cape Town's predicament which transpired four years ago, when a drought forced the city's over 4 million residents to cut their daily consumption in half.
Many have been forced to dip into their pockets and buy water to quench their thirsts and be able to bathe. This is despite the current tough economic climate that has seen the prices of basic goods skyrocketing.
According to Unisa Professor of Geography specialising in water resource administration, Anja du Plessis, the country’s ageing water infrastructure is depriving the country of reliable and safe water supplies.
Speaking to Radio 702, Du Plessis said that the ‘deplorable 64% access to usable water in the country is being negatively affected by infrastructure that is more than three decades old and failing’.
She stated that low water levels in the water supply are occurring in Cape Town and Gqeberha as a result of outdated infrastructure not being maintained, similar to Eskom's situation.
Du Plessis said a study revealed that most municipalities do not have the skills and capacity to properly manage water infrastructure in the country.
“Water management falls under the ambit of local municipalities, which are infamously known to mismanage water administration.”
Even though bad management can be blamed for the water crisis, extreme weather conditions have also exasperated the issue.
According to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, South Africa and other nations on the continent are among those most vulnerable to food and water insecurity caused by extreme weather events.
Scientists say that floods and droughts on the world's poorest continent are getting more frequent and more severe as a result of global warming brought on by human emissions of greenhouse gases.
Rand Water CEO Sipho Mosai said to address the water shortage problems in Gauteng, the utility had measures in place to help alleviate the problem. He said there was a plan to address the decay of infrastructure.
“We are putting infrastructure treatment into place. Rand Water will be spending at least R28 billion to upgrade our infrastructure in the next five years. Currently, we are building system 5A (Zuikerbosch) in Vereeniging, which will give us an additional 600 mega-litres of water in the next year.
“This plant is not only meant to provide water not for only now and tomorrow but into the future, which will be sufficient for the number of consumers we have,” said Mosai.
IOL