‘Businesses must weather drought’

MAYOR Patricia de Lille has called on about 600 businessmen and women to help the City with a greater response to the worst drought in decades.

De Lille yesterday addressed the Energy, Water and Waste Forum at the Cape Town International Convention Centre. “You are the men and women who contribute to driving our economy and who create and sustain jobs. For that I applaud you. For some time now, we have been positioning Cape Town as a forward-looking, globally competitive business city. It is a great place to live, work, visit, play and invest in.”

The mayor appealed to delegates for creativity and resilience to help the city safely navigate the drought.

“But today my call to action to business is that we need your help to do much more to save water. The future of our city and all our lives and your business depends on it.

“I ask that you join us in taking on a variety of actions to reduce consumption… and enhance our water resilience. I also want to challenge business to come to the table and invest in building a water-resilient Cape Town,” De Lille said.

She added the impact of climate change was being felt hard.

“We find ourselves in an unprecedented situation which none of us has seen in our lifetime, with way below average rainfall for the third winter in a row. Over the past few weeks and months, the City has announced and provided updates on our Water Resilience Plan, combining measures to reduce demand and bringing alternative sources to augment our water supplies online.”

De Lille said the new normal means changing the thinking and methodology of planning around water “as we can no longer rely on old systems which served us well in their time”. – Staff Reporter