While Gauteng has not declared drought as a disaster, the province is pulling all the stops to save its available water and to have an efficient provincial response to the water challenge.

Currently four provinces – KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, North West and Limpopo – have declared drought as a disaster, with Mpumalanga at an advanced stage of preparation for the declaration of drought as a disaster.

The Gauteng Province Water and Sanitation Forum held a meeting on Monday to formulate a concrete plan of action to respond to the water supply challenge.

The forum is made up of the Department of Water and Sanitation, Provincial Government, all municipalities and other relevant stakeholders, including Rand Water and Eskom.

Water conservation campaign

Addressing the media shortly after the meeting, Gauteng MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Jacob Mamabolo said the forum has decided to adopt a water conservation campaign to make sure the province manages its water supply optimally.

“What we need to do is go on the ground and engage different stakeholders, particularly those with high consumption of water. We’ll have discussions with them to drive the message that it is important to conserve water.

“We will also mobilise ward councillors to be champions at ward level to take the message to our people. Community development workers have been identified as key actors in the group to champion the message of conserving water,” MEC Mamabolo said.

Water harvesting

The campaign, which is expected to be launched on Thursday, is constituted by six critical elements, with the war on water leaks on top followed by water harvesting.

“We need to make sure that households, schools, clinics, police stations and government departments build capacity for harvesting… so that we don’t just rely on the Vaal River and Rand Water. The Vaal Dam is a source of water harvesting and we need to take it to our households,” MEC Mamabolo said.

Strengthening water supply production

Another element of the campaign is strengthening water supply production and water treatment capability, as well as guaranteed uninterrupted supply of water in all essential services like hospitals.

MEC Mamabolo said as another element of the campaign, Eskom has committed to ensuring that all sources responsible for pumping, storing and distributing have a steady power supply and that these sources should be exempt from power outages.

Joburg City Power has also ensured that the critical points will not be affected by load shedding.