The Gauteng provincial government has set up a \u201cwar room\u201d to tackle a water crisis in the province, according to a Sunday Times report.<\/p>\n
At a local, national and provincial level, the government is working with civilian and military water experts to devise a plan to prevent ‘day zero’, the paper reported.<\/p>\n
The project aims to reduce water consumption, and to fix run down sewage plants, to ensure the province evades running out of water.<\/p>\n
The government’s plan is based on a report called \u201cWater Security Plan for the Gauteng City Region\u201d, which was ordered following the water shortage in the Western Cape.<\/p>\n
According to a report, Gauteng residents consume over 300 litres of water a day \u2013 the highest in the country.<\/p>\n
The province has the highest population – 14.7 million out of 57.73 million people living in South Africa, according to Statistics SA – and is growing by almost 300,000 annually, as people flock to the area in search of work.<\/p>\n
The report stated that raw sewage is the biggest contributor to water pollution, with drinking water from Lesotho used to flush pollution out of the Vaal River System.<\/p>\n
It also noted that only one of Gauteng\u2019s three water treatment plants is operational.<\/p>\n
The SANDF is currently working to fix these facilities, according to the report, which it described as being similar to those in the Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n
Cape Town narrowly escaped \u201cday zero\u201d \u2013 the day the taps run dry – following a severe drought in 2017. Earlier this week, the Western Cape province lowered water restrictions from Level 5 to Level 3 recovery.<\/p>\n
This includes increasing the daily usage from 70 litres per person per day to 105 litres per person per day; or from 500 million litres to 650 million litres of collective usage per day.<\/p>\n
Cape Town\u2019s water crisis saw the city come within 90 days of turning off the taps earlier in 2018.<\/p>\n