Council to vote on punitive tariff for water waste

In a last-ditch attempt to stretch the available dam water in Cape Town to the winter rainy season, the city council will on Friday vote to introduce a punitive water tariff that will charge residents higher rates for usage above 6,000 litres a month.

On Thursday, Cape Town council officials said taps were likely to run dry on April 21 as residents continued to ignore calls to cut back on usage.

Cape Town is in the midst of its worst drought in a century with dam levels, now at a meagre 26%, dropping fast and consumption remaining high. However, because the last 10% of water is mostly unusable, it effectively means dam levels are at 16%. This is very unlikely to be enough to last the city until the end of May when the winter rainy season usually starts.

“Despite our urging for months, 60% of Capetonians are callously using more than 87 litres [the current daily limit],” Cape Town mayor Patricia De Lille said on Thursday.

From February 1, the city will move to level 6B restrictions, with a new limit of 50 litres a person per day to make up for the many months of missing the 500 million litre a day collective consumption target. Residents who were still wasting water, said De Lille, seemed to believe that Day Zero would not happen or that the city’s seven augmentation projects — set to produce about 200-million litres a day — would be enough to solve the supply crisis.

The proposal to punish excessive use, if passed, will mean households that use 6,000 litres a month will have to pay about R146, from R28.44. Households using 20,000 litres would be charged just over R1,500, up from R361.

Residents who use as much as 50,000 litres a month will be billed close to R21,000, up from about R3,000 a month.

“I will personally fight to ensure that the proposed punitive tariff exempts those who are using less than 6,000 litres per month,” said De Lille.

“Provision will be made for households larger than four people to ensure that they are not unfairly penalised.”

She said a proposed drought levy was likely to be dropped after a massive outcry from residents that it was unfair.

De Lille had announced late in 2017 that the proposed levy targeting owners of properties valued at R400,000 and above would be implemented at the beginning of February after it would have gone through council and public-participation processes.