WATER LEAKS
Increased efforts to conquer water crisis In mid-April, combined dam levels in Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality (NMBM) were at 13.73% – placing huge pressure on the region’s water security. Added to this, NMBM is restricted by the Depar tment of Water and Sanitation to extract 268 Mℓ/day; presently, the city is using approximately 300 Mℓ/day.
Lyle Francis, acting deputy director: Water Demand Management, NMBM
L
yle Francis, acting deputy director: Water Demand Management, NMBM, discusses the municipality’s interventions to reduce water wastage.
“Last year, during hard lockdown, additional maintenance contractors were appointed to repair water leaks and rehabilitate water pipelines. This was done in line with the Municipal Finance Management Act (No. 56 of 2003) and NMBM’s Supply Chain Management Policy. There are 60 wards within the municipal boundary, which are grouped into six clusters. Two contractors work per cluster. At the commencement of the contract, a backlog of 16 665 leaks was identified, which has now been resolved; however, it must be noted that new leaks and complaints are added every day – it will never reach zero.” Information management system NMBM’s call centre receives an average of 2 000 calls a day. Using a specialised software package called EDAMS,
complaints and queries are logged about public health, electricity and water, and are sent to relevant departments. On the water side, complaints are subdivided into categories such as burst pipes, leaking service pipes, leaking valves, leaking fire hydrants, leaking meters and leaking stop cocks. These complaints are then packaged and issued to the relevant contractors, depending on ward and cluster, via an Excel spreadsheet that has complaint details, street addresses and unique reference numbers. The contractors then email that list back to the EDAMS system, where the complaints are closed. Every week, an automated report is generated that displays the number of water complaints received, resolved and outstanding per cluster. “This automated report is a powerful tool used to flag problem areas. The performance of the contractors is tightly managed. They cannot claim that a leak is repaired when it is not or create duplicate claims for the same leak. The system will automatically recognise this and flag an error. Random daily spot checks are done by NMBM staff and call centre agents follow up with consumers every day to ensure that the complaints have been resolved,” adds Francis. The EDAMS software package has numerous impressive features and is tied M AY / J U NE 2021
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