COSATU Open letter to the City of Cape Town regarding the water crisis
10 May 2017
Please receive correspondence from our offices in relation to the water crisis in the Western Cape, which summarises the fact that the City has at last conceded that there is less than 10 % potable water left in the City supply dams, which will most likely run out in August 2017 .
The meeting has revealed that the City of Cape Town has been misleading the citizens of Cape Town on the extent of the Water crisis. The City of Cape Town has at last agreed with Cosatu’s assertion, that all things being equal there will be no water in the taps by May 2018. There have been water shortages since 2015/ 2016 and the reserves in the dams have been steadily declining. The decline in water reserves is because the amount of water used during that period was more than the amount of water that came into the water system. Given this situation and the same supply and demand in 2017, the water would be exhausted by May 2018. The City has not put in place any measures that would ensure that the city has water by May 2018. There are some medium and long term measures, but none of them will help resolve the short term crisis for 2017 and 2018.
The City of Cape Town only response to the crisis is to demand that people use less water. The average water use was 800 Million litres per day and the reduced targets is 600 million litres per day. Yet by the admission of Ms Lindberg the usage levels for Monday 9 May 2017 was 712 million litres per day, indicating a clear failure of the city’s water management system.
All the above points to the fact that water will most probably run out by July 2017, or definitely run out by May 2018. The City has been misleading the Citizens’ of the City of Cape Town, and the crisis is much more severe than we were led to believe, by the Mayor.