While Capetonians have been urged to reduce their water usage to below 87 litres per person daily, three households on average, exceeded 1 000 litres per day.

This was revealed by City of Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille on Sunday, who said the properties - two in Pinelands and another in Thornton - were singled out for the installation of water management devices.

"The water usage of these households over the past six months ranged between 19 000 and 48 000 litres per month. This means that, on average, the daily consumption of these households often exceeded 1 000 litres per day." De Lille said many high water users maintain a stubborn attitude and have prevented City staff and contractors from accessing their properties to install these meters.

"At times, they have even become aggressive and law enforcement staff had to accompany officials to install the water meters. The City’s teams have visited these properties twice already. This is a waste of City resources and residents have no standing to prevent the City from accessing its infrastructure."

City staff were given the power in July to install water management devices on premises where the water usage was unjustifiably excessive with respect to the restriction level.

The directive stated that in the event of non-compliance with Level 4b restrictions and the target of 87 litres per person per day, the City will, in terms of Section 36(4) of the by-law, at its discretion, install water management devices at premises where non-compliance is occurring.

De Lille said the City has taken actions to install water management devices at 18 597 high consumption households across the city so far where contraventions have occurred.

Requesting a quota extension

Properties where consumption above 350 litres per day is justified can make representation to the City to request a quota extension by submitting an affidavit with the names and identity numbers of people residing on a property.

De Lille said the residents of Pinelands and Thornton properties have no outstanding queries on their water accounts and have not requested a quota increase from the City.

"We cannot allow some people to continue abusing water while we are in the midst of an unprecedented drought," she said.

"This kind of behaviour is pushing Cape Town closer to Day Zero."

The date set for Cape Town’s dams to run dry is May 20, 2018,  De Lille said last week, adding that only 36% of Capetonians used less than 87 litres of water per day, compared to 44% the previous week.