CAPE TOWN, Sept. 10 (Xihua) -- The South African government on Monday refrained from endorsing the City of Cape Town's bid to relax water restrictions despite a significant rise of water in dams.
"Water restrictions imposed by the national government will remain in place and only be reviewed once the average Western Cape provincial dam level reaches 85 percent," the national Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) said.
According to the DWS, the dam levels assessment report as at September 10 suggests that the dam levels of the Western Cape Water Supply System have reached 68.9 percent, a notable increase increase from last week when it was at 65.96 percent.
Earlier on Monday, Cape Town announced the relaxation of restrictions starting from October 1.
The city said it made the decision taking into consideration that Cape Town's dam levels were nearing 70 percent of storage capacity due to good rainfall at the beginning of winter and the phenomenal conservation efforts of Capetonians.
Water restrictions and the associated tariffs are thus to be conservatively lowered in the interim from Level 6B to Level 5 from October 1, 2018, the city said.
Therefore, the water usage target will be increased from 50 litres to 70 litres per person per day and the daily collective consumption target will increase by 50 million litres to 500 million litres to ensure that water conservation efforts remain in place, Executive Deputy Mayor Alderman Neilson said.
Neilson said the municipality has been in discussion with the national department for some time about relaxing the restrictions but failed to get its blessing.
"The difficulty with the national department is that they've taken a broad approach that they are going to wait the right end of the season," Neilson said.
He said the city can no longer wait on the national department.
Essentially, all the users in the rain catchment areas have reviewed the hydrological information that's available and have all come to the conclusion that it is appropriate now for a stepwise relaxation of restrictions, Neilson said.
But in its Monday statement, the DWS defended its decision to keep the water restrictions, saying this is to safeguard the available resource particularly at this point when the winter rainy season is coming to an end.
The DWS is urging all water users to continue to save water and use water sparingly during the spring and summer seasons, DWS spokesperson Sputnik Ratau said.
Cape Town, South Africa's legislative capital with a population of four million, was on the brink of becoming the world's first metropolis to run out of water last year, in what was called Day Zero which refers to the time when dams supplying water to the city run dry, water taps are switched off and residents have to collect water at designated points.
In February this year, the city imposed Level 6B water restrictions, the most stringent water control in history, due to a persistent drought.
