Salga calls for a collective effort to deal with the water crisis

The South African Local Government Association has called for a collective effort to deal with the water crisis facing municipalities across the country.

Salga’s national executive committee met on Monday in Cape Town‚ and the water crisis was one of the big issues discussed on the day. The association said there needed to be more action to combat climate change and implementation of the Paris Agreement.

The Paris Agreement's was drafted to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Salga president Parks Tau said local government leaders must give greater consideration to combating climate change and fundamentally change their approach.

“The recent events‚ such as the severe drought crisis following low rainfalls and now severe storms‚ are all confirmation of the threat posed by climate change. The scale of the threat posed by climate change and the impact that it has on the lives of our communities can no longer be taken for granted‚” Tau said.

He added: “The City of Cape Town and the broader provinces of the Western Cape‚ the Eastern and Northern Capes are directly affected by the impact of climate change. The current drought crises in these provinces‚ should serve as a warning about managing water responsibly.”

At the NEC meeting affected cities‚ City of Cape Town‚ Nelson Mandela Bay and eThekwini made presentations on how they were managing the water crisis.

- TimesLIVE