‘Victims of natural disaster’

THE City says the council will meet to consider the comments received on the drought charge, and to determine the way forward regarding water resilience in the City of Cape Town.

Most of the 60 000 comments received on the proposed drought levy, questioned it. Mayco member for finance Johan van der Merwe said the discussions will inform the adjustment budget that will be tabled by the council for approval at the end of the month.

Among the organisations who objected were The Greater Cape Town Civic Alliance, who submitted a fourpage letter outlining their reasons. They said a number of households installed boreholes, rainwater harvesting and grey water-use systems at significant cost to reduce their demand on the water supply.

“It has never been the case that victims of a natural disaster should be punished,” they said. They said the state should come to the aid of the people of Cape Town and added that the City had not put enough pressure on the government.

However, Van Der Merwe said: “The City remains of the position that a drought charge is critical in order to make up for the shortfall in revenue required to increase the security of our water supply.”

He said that the proposal would also need to be approved by Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba.

“The reality is that because of reduced consumption, the City’s water and sanitation department has projected that it will see a deficit in the region of R1.6 billion for the 2017/18 financial year,” Van der Merwe said.

“The cost of running a water and sanitation network does not increase or decrease in proportion to the amount of water used or sold. The same repairs and maintenance are necessary to keep water and sewage flowing reliably.

“Similarly, the same number of meters need to be read, and the same number of invoices need to be generated.”

He added that without the R1.6 billion in revenue that would be lost, “the City will be hamstrung in undertaking the basic operations required to provide water and sanitation services to the people of Cape Town”.

“The proposed charge is simply necessary to enable the City to operate the network that brings water to each of our households,” Van der Merwe said.

Out of 707 800 households, 464 200 households will be affected by the charge.

Of these, around 52 500 will pay more than R150 per month, while the rest will pay an average charge of R73.

Meanwhile, the City launched its water map, calling on all Capetonians to paint Cape Town green with their water-saving efforts.