The Cape Town water crisis is a manufactured crisis

14 February 2018

The water crisis in Cape Town is a water management crisis. Whilst climate change is challenging in all areas, the water challenges have been badly mismanaged in Cape Town.  The extent of the crisis has been exaggerated for people to be able to sidestep procurement laws and enrich political allies. An example of this is Tony Leon getting a million rand Communication tender and billion rand desalination plants being explored with dubious suppliers. The farmers were allowed to take half of the daily water used in the City from our dams to speed up the crisis.

Now that the farmers have been restricted, day zero is moving back with a month every week. The day Zero was moved from 19 April to 12 May to 6 June, with the borehole and spring water now augmenting the supply, it should be even further back. The amount water used for irrigation and the consequences thereof were known but all this was purposefully allowed to continue to create the panic around water supply.

We are calling on the Human rights Commission, to investigate the manufactured crisis so water could be privatised. We are further calling on the Human Rights Commission to investigate the preparations for Day Zero with 200 water points. History shows us that if you wanted a public interest to be destroyed, you give it to JP Smith to manage, just look at how gangs and murders flourish on the Cape Flats.

Issued by Tony Ehrenreich, Provincial Secretary, COSATU Western Cape, 14 February 2018