Due to the shortage of plumbers in the water services unit, the metro takes between seven and 10 days to address water leaks, instead of the ideal three days.

Nelson Mandela Bay must urgently replace about 4,700km of ageing water pipes -- some more than 40 years old -- after water losses surged to a record 60.39% in the first half of the 2025/26 financial year.

This was revealed by the metro's water boss, Joseph Tsatsire, in a budget and treasury committee meeting on Tuesday, when he was prompted to explain the exorbitant losses at a time when dams supplying the municipality are drying up.

The metro recorded the water losses between July and November 2025.

This information is contained in the metro's mid-term performance report, which also shows a woeful picture of electricity losses, which reached R840-million.

Tsatsire told councillors in the committee that the city's water strategy was not working as it required funds to be properly implemented.

He said pipe replacement was one of the sustainable ways to curtail the losses.

"Dealing with losses to me is a no-brainer; we should be able to do it, it's easy. The water and sanitation unit has prepared a 15-workstream intervention to deal with water losses, [with one of the interventions being] pipe replacement," he said.

"Our infrastructure is probably more than 40 years old, and I'm talking about...