Deputy Minister of Water & Environmental Affairs, Rejoice Mabudafhasi, has taken the fight against water leaks to Carnarvon, Kareeberg Local Municipality this week as part of the water conservation public education and awareness.

The Deputy Minister together with the Carnarvon community will fix leaking taps at identified households experiencing water leaks. Municipalities are incurring loss of revenue through unaccounted for water exacerbated by leaking pipes and taps tomorrow, Thursday 11 April 2013.

Currently 1.58 billion cubic metres of supplied water have gone unaccounted for each year and it is estimated that non-revenue water for the country as a whole is approximately 36.8 percent of the water supplied. At a nominal production cost of R4.50 a cubic metre, this was a loss of about R7.2 billion a year. This is according to a study released by the Department of Water Affairs, in conjunction with the Water Research Council, earlier in March focussing on the state of non-revenue water in South Africa. Non-revenue water is water that has been pumped into the network, but never reaches the customer, due primarily to leaking pipes, theft or metering inaccuracies, amongst others.

According to a statement released by Spokesperson for the Deputy Minister, Peter Mbelengwa, “in heeding the clarion call by the President of the Republic of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, to reduce water loss by half in 2014, the Department of Water Affairs introduced the War on Leaks Project which aims to eradicate leaks at household level, educate users about water conservation, fixing leaks, creating jobs for young people and skills development.”

The visit by the Deputy Minister to the Northern Cape also aims to “deepen the National Water Week theme: Water is life, Respect it, Conserve it, Enjoy it.”

Northern Cape MEC for Environment and Nature Conservation, Me Sylvia Lucas will join the Deputy Minister during the War on Leaks.