President Jacob Zuma will launch government’s War on Leaks programme, on Friday, designed to train 15 000 young people to fix leaking taps in their communities.

This will be done in a bid to curb water losses which costs the country R7 billion a year.

The Presidency on Tuesday said the programme aims to recruit and train a total of 15000 artisans, plumbers and water agents over a period of three years.

They will be trained in three phases. Phase 1 will see 3 000 trained in the 2015/16 financial year, 5 000 in Phase 2 in 2016/17 and 7000 in phase 3 in the 2017/18 financial year.

The programme will be launched in Zidwe, Port Elizabeth.

This follows the announcement made by the President during an update on the State of the Nation Address (SONA), where he reported on progress made in implementing government’s Programme of Action.

Rand Water is the implementing agent on behalf of the Department of Water and Sanitation.