Cape Town gets tough with delinquent water users

26th September 2017 By: News24Wire

Cape Town gets tough with delinquent water users

Photo by: Bloomberg

The City of Cape Town plans to install roughly 2 000 water management devices per week on properties of excessive users to force down consumption, mayoral committee member Xanthea Limberg said on Monday.

In a statement, Limberg said the devices will only allow water consumption of 350 litres a day on the pre-identified properties.

In August, the City of Cape Town introduced level 5 water restrictions which seek to limit individual water consumption to 87 litres a day.

"The days are numbered for the delinquent water users," Limberg said.

On Monday, citywide water consumption stood at 622-million litres a day, 122-million litres above the city's target of 500-million litres a day.

On September 18, collective consumption stood at 624-million litres a day.

Limberg said drought is the city's "new normal".

"We need the whole of society to stand with us and to help us to get through this drought, but also to start laying the building blocks for a more resilient city over our longer-term future," she said.