Dam has burst on water problems‚ admits Cape Town mayor De Lille

Cape Town’s water call centre is drowning‚ mayor Patricia de Lille said on Wednesday.

De Lille said the number of calls had rocketed by 130% since the implementation of level three water restrictions on November 1‚ and staff were not coping.

“We have had a number of complaints about the response time‚” De Lille told councillors at the opening of the year’s last council meeting.

“We have a problem in the call centre with staff shortages. I visited the call centre myself yesterday and we will be putting measures in place by employing additional staff to deal with the complaints as well as more field staff to be dispatched to address water infrastructure issues.”

Level three restrictions are intended to save 800-million litres of water a day in Cape Town‚ but last week the target was missed by more than a 100-million litres a day.

“Overall water consumption across the city rose alarmingly last week‚” said the mayoral committee member for utilities‚ Ernest Sonnenberg.

“Residents are reminded that increased tariffs for water and sanitation came into effect on 1 December‚ and as such any wastage will have a greater impact on their pockets.

“We suspect that with the warmer weather‚ many residents are relaxing their adherence to some of the restrictions surrounding watering and filling of pools. Residents who continue to use water inefficiently for these purposes are placing the water supply for everyone under pressure.”

 – TMG Digital/The Times