Over R74 million allocated to Western Cape drought disaster relief

The Western Cape has spent the last few months plagued by crippling droughts across the province, dry land, dry farms and in some cases, even dry dams.  R74,8 million has now been allocated by government towards emergency disaster relief in the province.

Out of that amount, R40 million will go towards the acquisition of livestock feed. The City of Cape Town will receive the majority of the funding destined for municipalities with an amount of R20 million. The Theewaterskloof and Bitou municipalities will also receive funding.

Cape Town dams are currently up by 1,7%, meaning the dam levels stand at 34.2%

Read: Cape Town dam levels take another step in the right direction, up 1.7%

Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Des van Rooyen (Yes, him) said that the low levels of rainfall in the province were worrying.

“The National Disaster Management Centre and the Western Cape Disaster Management Centre will monitor and report on progress made on implementation of these projects.

“A project management team is being established by the province to monitor and provide oversight in order to ensure proper implementation of projects and the economic use of funding.”

The City of Cape Town is currently working on multiple plans to acquire more useable water. Mayor Patricia de Lille says her city is on top of the situation.

“The new normal is that we’re going to have a permanent drought in the City of Cape Town, but we want to give the people of Cape Town an assurance that this well-run city will not run out of water.”

She says the city is trying new ways to access an additional 500 million litres of water per day as it can no longer rely on rainfall.

“The methodologies that we’re going to use is to look at desalination, use of underground water and reusing waste water.”