Statement by Kouga Executive Mayor Elza van Lingen:

The Kouga Council would like to appeal to residents and visitors to save water in whichever way they can.

We ask this because our region desperately needs to cut back its water usage by 15 % over the next three months. If we don’t, residents may end up having to pay more than double what they are paying for water now.

We know that this is a terrible time of the year to ask this. Water is the last thing anyone wants to worry about when on holiday.

But the situation is serious.

Kouga receives most of its water from the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro. We were recently mandated by the Metro to cut back this usage by 15% or they would start charging us more.

Over the past month, however, our water purchases from the Metro have increased by almost nine percent.

Preliminary readings put our usage at 545 640kl for the period 18 November to 19 December 2016, compared to 485 470kl for the period 20 November to 18 December 2015.

This means that instead of using 15% less water, we’ve been using 9% more.

If this trend continues, there is a real risk that we might have to start implementing very steep water tariffs by April next year. These tariffs could see the price of water more than double for Kouga households.

The Council will do all we can to avoid steeper tariffs, but to succeed, we need everyone on board, saving water in whichever way we can.

The Council would further like to thank everyone who is already making an effort to reduce water usage. We are also grateful to those who are helping to spread the message because they care about their communities. With your assistance, we can achieve what we’ve set out to do.