Zero plan for Day Zero
Water crisis initiative dismissed as an ‘expensive PR exercise’
DA LEADER Mmusi Maimane introduced his new “Drought Crisis Team” yesterday and said he had taken the unprecedented step of taking political control of the responses to the water crisis.
“I have not been fully satisfied with how the City has responded to this particular drought crisis. Its communication has in some instances fallen short.
“This was not what citizens should expect from a DA government and so I have come… to communicate so that you are clear that we are taking decisive action,” he said.
But despite a number of questions posed at the media briefing in Athlone yesterday, a plan of action wasn’t forthcoming.
Instead, opposition parties have called the briefing – where the #DefeatDayZero campaign was unveiled – an “expensive PR exercise” for Maimane.
ACDP provincial leader Ferlon Christians said no new news was presented and that the DA pointed fingers, but discouraged finger-pointing at them.
“At today’s presentation… no tangible, achievable deliverables were committed to, and no logistical details were provided on Day Zero relating to ensuring that all Capetonians receive their daily water rations,” said Christians.
Maimane blamed the national government for not delivering bulk water in the form of dams.
However, the City owns 11 of Cape Town’s 14 supply dams and national government has effectively built the last dam possible in Cape Town’s rainfall catchment area because no further viable land is available, Christians said.
“Reference was made to the City performing aerial studies of the Cape Flats Aquifer in late 2017, yet the City committed to doing this multiple times since 2001 as part of its commitment to introduce groundwater projects, desalination projects and increase water reuse, which has only grown from 5% to 9% in the last 20 years, with all of these being the additional water augmentation schemes we now need,” he said.
Premier Helen Zille, who is also part of Maimane’s crisis team, said according to the constitution, the provision of bulk water supply fell on national government and disaster management.
But Water and Sanitation Minister Nomvula Mokonyane hit back.
“What the premier and Mmusi Maimane are trying to do is to shield the province and their organisation from accountability on the water crisis by shifting blame on the issue to national government without acknowledgement of the interventions implemented thus far in support of the province by the national government working through the National Disaster Management Centre,” she said.
Mokonyane said together with the City and the provincial ministry of Local Government, Environment and Development Planning, they had held several meetings to mitigate the effects of the drought on water availability.
Mokonyane said the proposals since pursued included desalination options, water recycling, further restrictions, clearing of canals, dredging of dams and speeding up the implementation of the Berg River-Voëlvlei augmentation scheme.
Mokonyane will over the next few days hold meetings with stakeholders to assess the interventions necessary to avert Day Zero, which has been moved forward to April 12.