The Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber supports the Metro’s installation of the Telemetry-SCADA system, to save water.
Through this system, the Municipality will be able to monitor and control key elements of its water infrastructure, from a central location .
Denise van Huyssteen, Chief Executive Officer of the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber, said “the Telemetry-SCADA system is helping to optimise operations and allow the municipality to act faster and more proactively when faults or inefficiencies are detected. This development is a positive move in the right direction. However, the effectiveness of this system can only go so far without a shift in water consumption behaviour. Our metro is still consuming well above the daily target, and this places enormous strain on available resources.”
Water consumption reached a record high of about 362 million litres per day (MLD), which is 82 MLD over the target demand of 280 MLD.
This is up from 341 MLD recorded in July 2024, and 285 MLD recorded in July 2023.
The Metro also lost between 42% and 48% non-revenue water, back in 2023, due to leaks, pipe breaks and illegal connections.
Joseph Tsatsire, Acting Executive Director for Infrastructure and Engineering at the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality, said the system has already begun shifting the city’s operations from a reactive to a more proactive model, allowing for better forecasting, quicker response times and improved coordination of maintenance and repairs.
“Our technical teams are now able to monitor infrastructure performance in real time, allowing us to detect faults early and respond before they affect service delivery,” said Tsatsire.