DA and De Lille are to blame for the water crisis – but now residents are being punished
6 December 2017
The City of Cape Town’s decision to punish its residents with a levy despite the fact that they are heeding the call to save water, is utterly unfair and the time has come for the DA and its Cape Town Mayor, Patricia de Lille, to stand up and accept responsibility for the water crisis, says Erika Botha-Rossouw, FF Plus Councillor for the City of Cape Town.
Botha-Rossouw says that this is in contravention of the accepted principle that consumers must pay for what they use. Now Capetonians have to pay because they don’t use.
The FF Plus voted against the levy.
Botha-Rossouw says that at a council meeting in 2011, the FF Plus had already warned the DA that Cape Town was heading for a water disaster and that precautionary measures had to be implemented in good time.
“The former FF Plus Councillor in Cape Town, Mr André Fourie, says that he warned the DA about this on the 1st of September 2011. Not only did he utter a warning, but he also offered practical, workable solutions to the water problem, like drilling bore holes, desalinating sea water and damming up mountain water that would otherwise end up in the sea.
“The warning and suggestions were ignored and shrugged off. Coincidentally, that is exactly what the DA is planning to do now in an attempt to address the crisis. They have actually not yet started to do anything – at this critical stage, all they have are plans.
“In a council meeting on the 26th of October 2016, I personally asked Mayor De Lille if the city was possibly heading for a water crisis, what the extent would be and what the contingency plans were.
“De Lille’s shocking and condescending answer was that I must be from another planet as Cape Town did not have a water crisis.
“The time has come for De Lille and the DA to stand up and take full responsibility for the crisis. But instead of that happening, the already heavily-taxed residents are now being punished,” says Botha-Rossouw.
Issued by Erika Botha-Rossouw, FF Plus councillor: City of Cape Town, 6 December 2017
