MBOMBELA – While the provincial government was urging the media to help it to request the public to please save water, someone forgot to switch off the sprinkler system at the government complex in the middle of the day.
Yesterday the executive council announced that it had approved the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs’ (Cogta) action plan in its drought disaster-assessment report. The provincial government can now ask National Treasury for assistance in alleviating the effects of this crisis.
The weather service has predicted that the below-normal rainfall of the past 12 months will continue in the next 18 to 24. Water restrictions have been imposed, and Mpumalanga is in the process of being declared a disaster area due to the continued hot and dry weather.
The council said 14 municipalities in the province outside the Lowveld were severely affected. Thaba Chweu, Umjindi, Nkomazi and Bushbuckridge were less affected, but were expected to experience water shortages for domestic use in the near future.
Cogta MEC Ms Refilwe Mtsweni said the Department of Agriculture, Rural Development, Land and Environmental Affairs (Dardlea) and the Department of Human Settlements also had disaster funds, which they had been requested to contribute.
Mr Gillion Mashego noted that Dardlea had reported a visible negative impact on the loss of grazing and livestock as well as the spreading of secondary diseases and the difficulty in sustaining livestock and crop production which was expected to have adverse effect on food security.
Both requested the assembled press to ask citizens to use water sparingly. But, just outside the Office of the Premier, the sprinkler system was on in full force at 11:00 in temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius.
The water did not only fall in the green bed around the top public parking space, but also dripped onto the cars and pavement underneath.
- Read more: Water becoming even more scarce
