State should resolve water crisis fast
Cape Town and the Western Cape are facing a catastrophe, and this is almost complacently accepted by most South Africans.
The ultimate responsibility for secure water supply lies with central government. However, I believe the ruling DA in the Western Cape and Cape Town could have done much more to prevent the crisis. It should have charged government and the department of water affairs for failing to secure the water supply. The blame would then have been laid at the door of government, where it belongs. Instead, the DA will be the scapegoat.
The Western Cape government should have been far more vocal and aggressive towards central government to ensure the water supply was increased by building dams, erecting water desalination plants and conserving water.
The DA has been addressing grievances all over the country — mostly successfully — but in the case of water for the Cape it has clearly failed to act early and vociferously enough. The lack of action so far is simply irresponsible.
The impending danger has been known for more than 20 years, yet only now do we hear the DA attributing blame to Pretoria. The central government itself has shown no visible concern nor any proactive stance whatsoever.
The situation is catastrophic. To believe that one could distribute 25l/day of water to 4m people from water tankers is preposterous. Cape Town would be destroyed if Day Zero measures really were to be implemented, and we could expect riots.
Government should rather cough up the estimated R15bn needed and get cracking on proper water desalination plants and other means of augmenting water supplies for the region — and quickly. This could be financed by the issuing of municipal bonds.
There are lots of unworthy cases into which government has poured billions. The money is theoretically there, but a lot of it is simply wasted or misappropriated. And why not let the Guptas finance a solution? They are supposed to have lots of our money anyway.
Another quick fix would be to hire the huge tankers with desalination plants on board. They could supply water to the existing grid in the shortest possible lead time.
This solution would certainly be expensive, but it would be far cheaper than to let a city like Cape Town be destroyed. If that were to happen, repercussions would be felt throughout SA.