Owners of car-wash businesses and their employees in Nelson Mandela Bay fear for the future of their businesses if the tougher new water restrictions – announced last week – are enforced.
“If they shut down carwashes they will be opening the doors for increased crime,” Siya Menze, 24, who works at Masakhane Carwash in Njoli Road, said.
Mayor Athol Trollip issued a stern warning last week that all car-wash businesses that did not adhere to the new measures would be shut down.
He also said that dam levels had dropped below 20%.
On Thursday, he appealed to residents to continue using water sparingly after dam levels increased by only 0.1% after the rains at the weekend.
The dams’ combined capacity was standing at 18.8 % on Thursday.
The new measures announced last week included:
● Municipal water may not be used at all to water gardens, wash cars, hose down walls or paving, or top-up pools, fountains or ponds; and
● Car-washes will be closed by the city if they do not recycle at least 60% of their water.
Municipal spokesperson Kupido Baron said: “Fines of up to R2,000 will be payable if a person does not follow the new laws.”With no formalised operation in place, Menze said, he used water buckets and had a 1,000-litre tank of water.
He said, on average, he used 50l of water on a single car.
“If the municipality closes this place then all 60 of those who work at this car-wash will then resort to crime for food and money for our families.
“The only thing I can do is wash cars because there are no jobs for us.”
Menze said he and other people informally employed by the car-wash washed an average of 10 cars a day.
The owner of New Brighton operation BRS 221 Carwash, Luyanda Maxama, 34, said: “These [restrictions] have not been communicated to us.
“At the moment we don’t use any municipal water.
“We buy borehole water from a guy in Cape Road.”
The owner of Pata-patha Lounge in New Brighton, Siyabulela Mandla, 36, who started operating at the beginning of July, said the business had not been told of the restrictions.
“The last time we spoke to the municipality we were in negotiations to find ways to cut our water consumption.
“Our car-wash [has] started using the high-pressure system as opposed to the bucket to reduce our water use, but there is no way that [we] can switch to recycling at the moment as installation of the recycling unit costs about R100,000.
“I think it would be [devastatingly] irresponsible for them to shut down our businesses as we are major employers in the township.”
At Thursday’s meeting, Trollip said: “We have to reduce our consumption from 240Ml to 210Ml, this is our new target.
“We almost reached the target of 215 Ml the day we instituted the new water restrictions. That means the people of the city have done well.”
Trollip said plans were in motion to increase the capacity of additional water coming from the Nooitgedacht lowlevel water scheme.
- Additional reporting by Siyamtanda Capa