More cuts in store for Cape

Capetonians will have to reduce water use even more in the new year.

The City of Cape Town's level 6 restrictions, which will come into force on January 1, will restrict residential households to 10500 litres a month and compel nonresidential customers to cut their consumption by 45% compared with 2015.

The agricultural sector has been ordered to reduce water use by 60%, sparking a warning from Agri-Western Cape spokesman Jeanne Boshoff yesterday that farmers would have to plant higher-value crops.

"This has already resulted in less vegetables planted in the Ceres area, and to fruit trees being cut back.

"This means smaller crops, which is putting the agricultural sector in the Western Cape under enormous pressure," she said.

A notice in the Government Gazette said that, as well as the restrictions on the use of municipal water, "the use of borehole water for outdoor purposes is discouraged in order to preserve groundwater resources".

"Borehole water should rather be used for toilet flushing."

Houses that used more than 10500l of water a month, as well as complexes using more than that per unit, would be "prioritised for enforcement".

Xanthea Limberg, the mayoral committee member for water, said 180,000 households were using more than 10,500 litres a month.

Water management devices were already being installed at the rate of 2000 a week at homes consuming over 20,000 litres of water a month.

Mayor Patricia de Lille told a city council meeting yesterday that a drought levy would be introduced in the new year.

The proposed charge, to be implemented from February 1 if Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba gives the go- ahead, is aimed at residents who own properties valued at over R400,000.

A resident with a property valued at R600,000 can expect to pay R35 a month.

"The reason for this is simple: our survival. We all simply need water to survive," De Lille told the council.

She added the city council faced a R1.7-billion shortfall in water revenue.

"Without this critical income we will be unable to fund not only all of the proposed water augmentation programmes, but also the basic operations required to provide water and sanitation services to the people of Cape Town," De Lille said.