Cape Town has entered its end game with water restrictions, before the taps are forcibly shut down by the municipality.
Speaking at a press conference in the Mother City on Thursday morning, Mayor Patricia de Lille revealed that Capetonians will be required to clamp their water usage down to 50 litres per day, per person, in a bid to limit the damage day zero will do.
De Lille claimed that it is ‘now likely’ day zero will occur in the city, and is still on schedule for April 21 2018. However, asking residents to limit themselves to 50 litres a day may be a fool’s errand. Previous restrictions stood at 87 litres per person on a daily basis, but less than half of inhabitants could meet that target.
New punitive tariffs for those exceeding water usage. Dams are at 28.6 %. 16% percent of that is useable. Drought levy to be dropped. @eNCA #WaterCrisis pic.twitter.com/m7JsLfSK9K
— Annika Larsen (@AnnikaLarsen1) January 18, 2018
At this early stage, it seems that every suburb in the Cape Town metropolitan will face the laborious task of having to pick water up from designated collection points.
That is, unless, you live in the City’s CBD area. Executive Mayco member Xanthea Limberg confirmed that the heart of the city would remain ‘unaffected’ by day zero. If you live in the ‘city bowl’, there’s a good chance your taps won’t be turned off.
Informal settlements will not see a water collection point installed, however. This is because they already have such systems in place.