Lack of rain not my fault

The writer of your editorial (DA needs to find its soul, March 12) made an ill-informed remark: “One of the central planks of the DA message has been that like it or not, it is an effective, incorruptible administration. But that has been bruised by Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille’s disastrous handling of the Cape Town water crisis.”

If there is any evidence of corruption in the management of the water crisis there is a duty on any person who has evidence in terms of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act to take such evidence to the authorities immediately.

I have become used to being blamed for many things but one thing I cannot be blamed for is that it hasn’t rained. In responding to climate change, under my leadership we developed a new plan where water scarcity is the new normal.

Under this scenario we are reducing our reliance on rainwater and tapping into more non-rainwater sources such as desalination, groundwater and water reuse. All of this while reducing consumption to conserve the water in our dams.

We received advice from specialists from across the world, who all agreed that our best option in terms of lower costs and greater yields was to invest more in groundwater.

We mobilised as many drills as possible to get to work and bring additional water online. We also reduced the number of desalination projects on expert advice.

This is the plan which is still being implemented and is showing results. For many years the city has also implemented its Water Demand Management and Conservation programme, which won a C40 Cities award at COP21 in Paris.

Many people fail to accept that it is the national department of water’s responsibility to build new water schemes.

The Cape Town city administration is working beyond its constitutional mandate to bring emergency supplies online. Under my leadership we have reduced consumption in Cape Town from 1.1-billion litres a day before January 2016 to about 500-million litres a day currently. “Disastrous” would mean that we would have run out of water by now. Our collective water savings have pushed Day Zero back.

I therefore take great exception to my work being labelled “disastrous”.

There are many people responsible for ensuring water supply, and I for one have stayed away from finger pointing.

Patricia de Lille

Cape Town executive mayor