MEC warns of dry year ahead, urges care

LOCAL Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning MEC Anton Bredell has urged people to continue using and reusing water to conserve the precious resource.

Speaking at a media briefing on the ongoing drought in parts of the province, Bredell said he had been informed by the Western Cape Disaster Management Centre that the weather predictions for the next year were not favourable, and people in the Western Cape would need to plan ahead.

“We can’t sit here and say ‘maybe it’ll be okay’,” said Bredell.

Today he will be meeting with Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) Western Cape regional head Rashied Khan to discuss water usage in the City of Cape Town.

“We’ve managed to bring it down from 1.2 billion litres and for that we must thank the citizens of the City for working with us, I think it’s a world record we set there. We managed to get it down to 500 million litres a day. It gradually went up to 600 million litres a day and we’re now going to 700 million litres a day. We need to be aware of this and so we again want to emphasise the importance of using and reusing our water.”

Speaking about the recently launched master plan by Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, Bredell said: “We’re very thankful for the water master plan, but we as the Western Cape must now come up with a water strategy that fits into the national plan. We’re busy working with that, led by Graham Paulse, our head of department.

“I have met with my colleagues in the City of Cape Town who also have their water strategy as well as a water plan, which they’ve finished working on and will present to the provincial cabinet at the first cabinet meeting in January.”

On the ongoing drought in parts of the Greater Karoo, Paulse said: “Some areas have had rain, but we can see the underground levels of water have not recovered in the way we’d expected.”