Confusion and chaos
I HAVE been following the DA leader and your government’s comments during the past 10 days concerning the precarious position we, in Cape Town, find ourselves regarding the supply and availability of potable water.
If you’re not repeating the same things, the main issues of the date of Day Zero and the state of supplementary projects are being less than adequately addressed.
Regarding the date of Day Zero, there has been a lot of fanfare on the supplementation of water supplies from the Palmiet dam.
However, the recent announcement by the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), and the potential impact on supply, by allowing our two big dams to be drawn down to way below the traditional 10% dead water level, has been ignored.
In fact, DWS has gone on record that the relevant work on one dam has been completed and work on the second dam will be completed shortly.
We all know that your Day Zero computation has been based on the usual 10% dead water level, but the work that DWS is doing will free up a good portion of this to be water available for distribution, thereby materially pushing back Day Zero.
Why has this not been commented on or even referred to in any way?
On the issue of supplementary supply projects, there is such a mishmash of commentary from various government departments that citizens of Cape Town don’t know what the state of any project is.
What projects are being undertaken? Their timelines are largely unknown and specific web pages are not being kept up to date.
All in all, if this new water leadership team was supposed to improve communication so that all could understand, accept and rally behind your mantra of pushing back Day Zero, this has not happened.
What you have is utter confusion, total chaos as has been witnessed by panic-buying and concerned citizens not knowing where to turn to get the right and proper information.
Is this what your government wants? I believe your government has not treated your Cape Town citizens fairly up to now. Also, you have lost much human capital, which you will no doubt see in future elections. Concerned Consumer