On Tuesday, May 31 the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality’s JOC Drought Mitigation Committee received an update
from the Communications Task Team, outlining steps to be taken to aggressively inform citizens about the ongoing drought.
Today, June 3 the metro launched the first of its communication tools for the drought crisis – a single source of information designed to simplify information and make it accessible.
The new portal,
www.baywatersavers.co.za will be the official page for all drought information, daily dam capacity
dashboard, easy to follow water user guides, and soon, users will be able to share water saving tips.
Mandela Bay Development Agency spokesperson, Luvuyo Bangazi, the coordinator of the task team says, “we have
been working together as a team for just over two weeks, and we listened to water users, the media,
civil society, and everyone agreed that we needed to refresh the message, tap into technology and
use immediate tools in this time of crisis”.
The Bay Water Savers website does not require a user to have data on their device to gain access, it is
mobile responsive, meaning it will recognize your type of device and serve the information in the most
user-friendly way.
This initiative came out of a collaboration between the MBDA, NMBM and the NMB
Business Chamber, working under the direction of the City Manager and the Water and Sanitation
department.
More communication approaches are on the offing, such as ward-based water ambassadors, save
water Friday traffic take over and an interactive artificial intelligence WhatsApp number will follow in
the coming days.
“We are in a race against time” concluded Bangazi.
The message is clear, we all need to reduce our consumption to less than 50 liters per day per person.
Water users can log in at www.baywatersavers.co.za and find out how, whilst keeping track of the
water supply situation via the live dashboard.
The NMBM JOC Drought Mitigation Committee urges all water users to continuously check on the
water meters to observe consumption, where possible to recycle water, and to report water leaks by
calling 0800 20 5050 or email waterleaks@mandelametro.gov.za.
ISSUED BY NELSON MANDELA BAY MUNICIPALITY
