Three years ago, in the midst of a crippling water crisis, the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality spent R46-million to extract drinking water from under St George’s Park. A street in Motherwell in Nelson Mandela Bay is flooded by a leaking sewage manhole that has been blocked for months, with health concerns voiced by residents and the local councillor still unanswered. In 2023, Nelson Mandela Bay spent millions of rands on water supply augmentation projects, which allowed the city to narrowly avoid Day Zero, when taps were expected to run dry. At the lowest point, the dams supplying water to Nelson Mandela Bay dipped below 7% of their combined capacity. Nelson Mandela Bay's Impofu Dam was 15% full in May 2021 as a drought tightened its grip on the region.