City to receive R553 million in funding for water projects from national government

1 October 2018  

This past week the City of Cape Town received communication that we will be receiving grant funding for drought relief efforts from the national government.

Following an application for grant funding, we are very grateful for this support and look forward to receiving an allocation of R553.05 million. I will be writing a letter of acknowledgement and thanks to the national government for this support.

The funds must be used in line with the City’s application for the funding for the Cape Flats, Atlantis, and Table Mountain Group Aquifer recharge projects and in terms of the Municipal Disaster Recovery Grant Conditions.

Following the gazetting of the grant in October, the funds will be reflected on the City’s Informal Settlements, Waste and Water Services department’s budget to be spent in terms of the project delivery plan.

The direct conditional grant funding for drought relief was received from the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (incorporating the National Disaster Management Centre) in conjunction with National Treasury and I would like to thank these departments as well as the Western Cape Provincial Government for the role they played in facilitating access to this funding support which will strengthen our efforts to ensure water security and build a water-resilient city.  

Cape Town has felt the impact of climate change with three years of extremely low rainfall and as a city we have all come together to navigate our way through this difficult period.

I commend Team Cape Town for all their brilliant water-saving efforts and ask that we continue on this trend as our dams must still recover fully.

We have received very good rains this winter but as we head into the summer months we must constantly remember to adhere to our new relationship with water and continue using it as sparingly as possible.

Issued by Zara Nicholson, Spokesperson for Executive Mayor, Patricia de Lille, City of Cape Town, 1 October 2018