Drought: Tshwane still in crisis despite rains

Despite heavy downpours across Pretoria, the situation remains dire, and Mayor Solly Msimanga has appealed to residents to use water sparingly.

Pretoria - Despite heavy downpours across Pretoria which have led to flooding in some parts, Tshwane Mayor Solly Msimanga on Tuesday appealed to residents to continue using water sparingly as the situation remained dire.

Msimanga, however, said the heavy downpours had provided part relief for the capital city’s water status.

“We’ve received the rains much earlier, but that doesn’t mean we are out of the woods as yet. This rain is not falling where it is supposed to – we want it in the Vaal where we get our water from. We are getting a lot of water [rain] here in Tshwane, in Johannesburg and in Ekurhuleni, but that doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods,” said Msimanga during a media briefing at Tshwane’s Rietvlei water treatment plant.

“We still need to be saving a lot of water. The relief is that now, with the rains, not a lot of people have the urge to water their gardens.”

Msimanga said Tshwane residents had surpassed the 15 percent water usage reduction target. Last month, Rand Water, Tshwane’s main source of water, instructed municipalities across Gauteng to cut their water usage by 15 percent or face the prospect of a complete system crash as dam levels continued to dwindle to unprecedented levels.

“I want to congratulate the residents of Tshwane. Once we started with the campaign [to cut water usage], we were supposed to reach a saving of 15 percent, but we have surpassed that. We are sitting at 15,8 percent, which is something we can start celebrating,” said Msimanga.

Tshwane has introduced numerous temporary measures which include prohibition of watering gardens between 6am and 6pm, irrigation of golf courses using municipal water, filling up of swimming pools and washing vehicles using hosepipes.

Msimanga urged residents to take advantage of torrents of rain in different ways.

“We are not out of danger as yet. We have to ensure that those that can harvest water do so. We are encouraging as many people as possible to try and harvest as much water as they possibly can, and also to use grey water. That can be used to flush our toilets or to water our gardens as some people had already started doing,” said Msimanga.

“Right now we are starting to turn the corner. We are starting to see a lot of changes in the behaviour of how people use water. More importantly, we are seeing the results of the strict measures that we put in place,” he said.

Since the water restriction regime was introduced across Tshwane, Msimanga said 40 people have already been fined for contravening the constraints.

Tshwane MMC for infrastructure, Darryl Moss, said to avoid inconveniencing businesses, the water restrictions had been directed at residential areas.

“Our target for the water restrictions is not business. We do not want to shut down businesses – that is the worst thing we could do. Our target is very much in the domestic area. We are, however, starting a forum for our top 50 water and electricity users. Those are businesses. We have had had a very positive response from businesses who want to participate in this,” said Moss.

African News Agency