City of Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille is due to hit the streets to help install water management devices to curb excessive water usage.
De Lille will go door to door targeting the city’s water guzzlers next week. They will start with the top hundred culprits‚ her spokesperson‚ Zara Nicholson told TimesLIVE.
The mayor told a full council meeting on Thursday that due to the impact of climate change‚ the dam levels remained extremely low for this time of the year.
“The little rain we had in the past few weeks has had an insignificant impact on our dam levels and too many people have relaxed their water-saving efforts thinking the few drops of rain have saved us‚” said De Lille.
According to the city’s new Level 4b restrictions‚ an individual is supposed to use 87 litres of water per day in order for the city to achieve its 500-million litres daily limit.
Nicholson said the water management devices would ensure that residents stick to the daily limits but the city had still not determined the final number of households they would be targeting.
“[City officials] are sifting through all that data and making sure that we are not putting people on the list who shouldn’t be on the list ...We [notify people] to say: ‘Look‚ you consumption is too high‚ please explain what the situation is in your home’‚” she said.
She said sometimes residents’ high consumption could be justified because they run businesses.
“It’s just about knowing exactly what is happening on a property before we go and fit a device because people have been given a chance ...to justify and explain what the reason is‚” said Nicholson.
Big businesses are not off the hook. She said they are in constant communication with corporates to discuss water consumption. However residential users are the biggest water users.
- TimesLIVE
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