June 25, 2015
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Sane Dhlamini.
Making headlines:

Durban residents are warned of water shortage as Hazelmere Dam reaches critically low levels.

Guinea quarantines villages in a reinforced bid to stamp out Ebola.

And, the National Assembly passes Eskom’s money Bills.

The acting head of eThekwini’s water and sanitation department, Richard Mngoma, on Wednesday warned Durban residents that if they did not use water sparingly, taps could run dry.

Presenting a report to the council on the state of water in the province, Mngoma said levels at Hazelmere Dam had dropped to below 30%.

As of Tuesday morning the dam was sitting at 29.6% capacity.

“The daily demand is 40 megalitres per day. Hazelmere Dam has now reached critically low levels [of less than 60 days supply]. Therefore, mandatory curtailments in production at Hazelmere waterworks have been implemented in order to mitigate the risk to supply assurance in the short term,” said Mngoma.

He explained that the Hazelmere plant operators would from now on start pumping water once a day at an agreed time.

Some of the areas that will be affected daily include Waterloo, La Mercy, King Shaka Airport, Sibaya casino and the CBD.

Guinea will put four villages under a 21-day quarantine as part of a robust strategy to stamp out a lingering Ebola epidemic. This is after new cases of the disease were discovered.

The worst Ebola epidemic on record has killed more than 11 000 people in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea over the last year and a half.

Liberia became Ebola-free in May, but neighbouring Sierra Leone and Guinea were still struggling to get to zero cases despite hundreds of millions of dollars in aid.

According to a health ministry document seen by a news agency on Wednesday, the quarantine would apply to Sikhourou Koloteya in the Forecariah prefecture southeast of the capital Conakry along with Tanéné and Bamba in Dubreka prefecture.

The village of Tamarasy in the Boké mining region would also be subject to the new measures.

Twenty-one days is the standard observation period for an individual believed to have come in contact with an Ebola-infected person.

Two money Bills which would see Eskom’s balance sheet beefed up by close to R50-billion within the next year were given the green light by the National Assembly on Wednesday.

The Eskom Special Appropriation Bill paved the way for the payment of the first tranche of a R23-billion cash injection to Eskom which was expected to be funded from the sale of government’s nonstrategic core assets.

During Wednesday’s debate, Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene again remained mum on what government assets were sold to fund the lifeline to the troubled power utility, despite concerns raised by opposition parties about the “secrecy” surrounding the deal.

The first tranche of R10-billion was expected to be paid to Eskom before the end of the month, with the second one expected to be paid before December, and the outstanding amount during the 2016/17 financial year.

Meanwhile, the Eskom subordinated loan Special Appropriation Amendment Bill, which was also passed on Wednesday, paved the way for the conversion of a R60-billion government loan to Eskom to be converted to equity.

Also making headlines:

Johannesburg Mayor Parks Tau said he does not see a threat from smaller political parties leading up to next year's local government elections.

The Department of Home Affairs said new visa regulations for child travellers have had the biggest impact on children entering South Africa from neighbouring countries and not from traditional tourist markets.

And, Swiss police were guarding three UN investigators into Eritrea's human rights record in Geneva after a top official said they had received threats on the street and at their hotel.

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That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.