Imtiaz Sooliman – Gift of the Giver’s initiatives ahead of dreaded Day Zero in Mandela Bay
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The Australian river crisis is causing damage to houses and buildings, but the situation is under control. The use of boreholes and water management are important for reducing leaks and improving water quality. The speakers emphasize the need for water recycling and the importance of keeping animals and pets healthy. The focus is on finding areas where informal settlements are, where the poorer is further away from the city, and where there is no water availability. The use of water in various projects, including construction of tankers and institutions, is emphasized.
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Now the clock continues to tick down towards the dreaded Day Zero
in Nelson Mandela Bay, as several parts of the drought stricken
municipality have already seen taps running dry or water shedding
gift of the givers, of course, earlier drilled boreholes amidst
the water crisis there and for an update, we're joined now by Dr MTS
Suleiman, Director of gift of the givers, Doctor, thank you for
being with us as always. What is the situation on the ground right
now to start off, I mean, more than a month ago, you were saying
it was two days away, Day Zero. But then, of course, the boreholes
came as something to defer the crisis becoming full blown. As it
were,
good evening, Francis, it's not that, it's the situation is under
control. They they the there is water shedding. They are areas
that don't receive water. Sometimes it's for a day,
sometimes for two days, sometimes for three days. Some area haven't
had water for weeks. There was a table drawn the red zones, yellow
zones, and other zones, and the red some of the yellow zones
already in trouble. So the problem is that it's not certain when the
water was shut off and where it was shut off, but the reality is
that in the absence of rain and the dams not not getting full,
there's going to be a big crisis unless there's alternative sources
of water, and that's why the poor holds on the one side. You have to
know it for that dam, which is getting enough water from the
kharif dam in the Free State, but it only holds 210 million liters,
and you need more than that. The other three dams that supply the
other areas, they are virtually shut. No more water can come out
of them, the Churchill complex, they import for and there was one
more. You'll come back to me. Now, three of those dams
are not functional, so in the process, there's two things to do.
One is to cut down on water usage, and there's two ways. One is to
deal with the leaks. And the business and the municipality have
been very active in trying to cut the leaks in a different area,
spot in the roads, in the houses and the schools Aspen, you know,
we've been working with them. They've done an audit. And a lot
of houses have leaks more than the roads, because there's a lot of
leaks in the houses which need to be fixed to save water. And once
you have that, and if people themselves start using less water
besides the leaks, like what happened in Day Zero in Cape Town,
when people are using 50 liters a day. There will be water for a
longer period, but not more water. There'll only be more water if the
rains come, and we're not sure when the rains are going to come.
So to augment that, we have to put boreholes. We now standing at 23
boreholes, and we are adding roughly 7 million liters of water
per day where it is not being used every day, but a 7 million liters
of water available when the real crunch comes in, depending on the
areas. And in addition to that, we also got a contribution in terms
of water from a desalination plant owned by sedipose to salt people,
or from which we get 500,000 liters a day. So as it stands
right now, we can contribute seven and a half billion liters of water
per day to different parts of the city, and the construction, the
drilling of all is continuing. We're starting three more
tomorrow. So it sounds huge, but what impact does that have in
terms of population size?
How many people can you give to water, give water to on a daily
basis. And for how long? If that makes sense,
well, for long it can be permanent. You know, it can be
permanently because that is it's the way you use the aquifer. The
aquifers are well used. So if they push out a certain amount of
liters per you don't use the total amount. You reduce the so let's
make it simple. If the aquifer gives you 10,000 liters per hour.
You pump it at about seven or 8000 liters per hour, so to make sure
it recharges and you don't destroy the aquifer, we've been doing that
for several years now. We've drilled close to 500 poles, and
not one of ours have dried out using that system. Don't answer
your question, how many people can we help if we take a minimal
amount of water just for drinking medication and maybe watching the
baby. Those are the three most important needs. You can give
700,000 people 10 liters of water per day. And of course, you've got
the water still coming from the dam. There's two 10 million liters
and of and and the municipality is looking at ways of sharing that I
would we could carry on for quite some time. We we still want to
find more water. It makes a huge difference. It can't make a
difference to everyone, but it makes a huge difference in the
areas we've selected. For example, we put a lot of balls in schools,
which means the school sanitation system, the school students and
the school teachers all have water, and they can take water
home. But in addition to that, we spent a lot of money running
pipelines from the ball in the schools to the outside. For
example, there's a place called Malabar Primary School. There's
four informal settlements around the school and even a formal
housing they all can get water. And remember, this is also abetted
by the fact that many of those who can afford it are putting balls in
their own homes and their own places of work. I.
And those balls are then making water available for those who work
and to take home. Yeah. So collectively, what individual
balls, private balls, work? Balls, what we drilling, trying to save
water, trying to fix the leaks, and using the water judiciously.
We are, we have, we're not out of the woods yet. You know, it's,
it's still a problem. But it's not like what is shut down for for
several weeks. And the other place where we're putting water in,
which is critical, are hospitals. We increase in the capacity of the
PE hospital, hospital by 250,000 liters a day. We live there
already. We put in booster pumps and we bring in special ladders to
hold that amount of water. We're supporting Livingston Hospital,
which is the biggest hospital in the city, and of course, it is a
Duncan psychotic hospital and Jose PS and TV hospital, all critical
hospitals where we cannot afford ever prone. So it's very selective
where we put the water. We also put the one in a pet shelter.
Today animals need water, and we put one in the canine unit at
saps. So eventually animals have to be taken care of. So it's very
diverse where we're putting it, but in very strategic locations.
And it sounds like your focus is on the poor, and we often hear the
plight of the poor. I mean, when water runs out, some people can go
and buy a bottle or a few liters and sort of stock up, but some
people can't. No, that's why it's been important that we identify
those areas where informal settlements are, where the poorer
areas are, where they are further away from the city, where
transport cost is too high to come in the bottle. Buying bottled
water is expensive. So yes, we put the boreholes in areas, But it so
happened that those are the red areas, also the areas that need
assistance first. And the other good thing is, in most of those
areas, the rock, the geological pattern of drilling, is excellent.
So we find good quality water. Yes, there are some areas where
the which is a poor areas where there is no water and the rocks
are not good. So to drill there is really a waste of time. Those
areas require water points. And again, working with the
municipality, they setting up 50 water points. Those water points
will be ready soon, and it is waiting for the concrete slabs to
go on. We will then provide the JoJo tents for all those 50
points. And we have coke that has given us three by 35,000 liter
water tankers which we can use to fill up those JoJo tanks, as well
as institutions, all at home, some for the physical inventory
challenge, also orphanages. And in addition to that the company has
donated two water tankers to us, which we collecting on Monday in
Cape Town and bring that across. And we brought one of our water
tankers across, the net busses, and the municipality got its water
tankers. So it's a combined effort, but we still not out of
the woods. Many more boats will have to be drilled. We have to
find that the municipality. Have to find ways of making the water
more accessible from not and to spread it more areas. But
everybody was dependent on that water doesn't have both are going
to have less water for a long period of time unless big rains
come in from the other dams. All right, at least some efforts
underway to really keep some water flowing there in Nelson, Mandela
Bay, thank you very much for that update. Dr intia Suleiman is
director of gift of the givers.