[OPINION] Cape Town, a city drowning in incompetence | Daily Maverick

Slootvreter said:
Did they claim it was our fault?
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“We have reached the point of no return. Despite our urging for months‚ 60% of Capetonians are callously using more than the 87 litres per day.

“It is quite unbelievable that a majority of people do not seem to care and are sending all of us headlong towards day zero.

“At this point we must assume that they will not change their behaviour and that the chance of reaching day zero on April 21 is now very likely.”
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Patricia De Lille, https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-01-18-de-lille-pushes-the-drought-panic-button/

No journalist has thus far been able to establish where the quoted figure of 60% of Capetonians ignoring the water restrictions comes from.
 
Slootvreter said:
So that they are blaming us for this predicament is someone's opinion/interpretation.
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That would be a inference, not an implication.

Maybe you don't stay in Cape Town but we're constantly told that our inability to save is the reason we're hitting day zero.
 
It is beyond clear that the blame for this crisis lies ultimately with the City of Cape Town and their too-little-too-late responses to an imminent catastrophe.
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Didn't really get further than that.

The municipality is responsible for delivering water, the national government is responsible for supplying it. I sense the author actually knows this but since this is one of surely a deluge (see what I did there) of similar pieces to hit us over the next few months they are purposefully being obtuse.

As I say, expect more of the same. The ANC would be doing a poorer job of slagging off the DA than what they have of supplying water to the nation if the failed to post propaganda like this.
 
SlinkyMike said:
As I say, expect more of the same. The ANC would be doing a poorer job of slagging off the DA than what they have of supplying water to the nation if the failed to post propaganda like this.
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How long before we get a Parliamentary Inquiry into the Minister of Water and Sanitation: https://businesstech.co.za/news/gov...uth-africas-r26-billion-water-project-report/

Water affairs and sanitation minister Nomvula Mokonyane is in the cross-hairs of the Public Protector after delaying South Africa’s Lesotho Highlands Water Project, allegedly to award contracts to a company she has a long-standing relationship with.
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I don't think she had time to bother with needs of Cape Town...
 
Hmmm

[video=youtube;tPL5xw3EOYQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPL5xw3EOYQ[/video]
 
porchrat said:
That would be a inference, not an implication.

Maybe you don't stay in Cape Town but we're constantly told that our inability to save is the reason we're hitting day zero.
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I live in Cape Town, and I have never felt the City is blaming the citizens. Sure we can help alleviate the situation, but they never said we are the ones who caused it.
 
noxibox said:
She doesn't seem to realise that even if that figure is correct it is a damning indictment of the city's and her mismanagement. They're admitting that they cannot even enforce the water usage targets.
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The existing water metering system is designed for billing purposes, it was never meant to control usage.
 
Gordon_R said:
The existing water metering system is designed for billing purposes, it was never meant to control usage.
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For repeat offenders they have meters that they install at the home owner's cost that will cut water supply to the property if a certain usage threshold is exceeded.
 
Slootvreter said:
For repeat offenders they have meters that they install at the home owner's cost that will cut water supply to the property if a certain usage threshold is exceeded.
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Absolutely! But that is very time-consuming, and does not cover the vast majority of (slight) over-users, which is where the real issue occurs (between 6-10.5kl/month).
 
Heard the head of Planning in the Water and Sanitation department on the radio yesterday.
Straight out said, Province and City were advised years ago,long term planning.... that they have to bring down consumption, as resources - desalination and other augmentations to bulk up supply will only come on stream by 2020

Said out flatly...Province and City consistently do not reach targets, now want to panic. The action we have seen in the last 6 months should have happened in 2015 already.
 
yebocan said:
Heard the head of Planning in the Water and Sanitation department on the radio yesterday.
Straight out said, Province and City were advised years ago,long term planning.... that they have to bring down consumption, as resources - desalination and other augmentations to bulk up supply will only come on stream by 2020

Said out flatly...Province and City consistently do not reach targets, now want to panic. The action we have seen in the last 6 months should have happened in 2015 already.
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I can only laugh
Back in 2005 the DWA (don't know why I wrote DWS until now) said to the city "We have all these cools augmentation plans for you, but before we begin building start saving water first." Now they turn around and say told you so while the city has honestly done quite well in terms of managing their water and DWA has done next to nothing? :rolleyes:

I can only wonder what targets were not met in CT who have losses of 14% and consumption levels similar to the early 2000's, meanwhile KZN gets a desalination plant and have losses over 30% (edit: in 2012 is was over 50%, can't find more recent numbers at the moment)
 
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Alan said:
A DA spokesman has claimed Mmusi Maimane is in town to help inform people about the crises. Apparently there is a large number of people who still haven't been informed about it.
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There are also people who think this is something fabricated by local government to get your money :rolleyes:
 
Archer said:
I can only laugh
Back in 2005 the DWA (don't know why I wrote DWS until now) said to the city "We have all these cools augmentation plans for you, but before we begin building start saving water first." Now they turn around and say told you so while the city has honestly done quite well in terms of managing their water and DWA has done next to nothing? :rolleyes:

I can only wonder what targets were not met in CT who have losses of 14% and consumption levels similar to the early 2000's, meanwhile KZN gets a desalination plant and have losses over 30% (edit: in 2012 is was over 50%, can't find more recent numbers at the moment)
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yep, please don't bring any facts that affects the current narrative ;-) check https://www.groundup.org.za/article/facts-and-myths-about-cape-towns-water-crisis/ - first bit on "population growth and water efficiency"
 
Alan said:
A DA spokesman has claimed Mmusi Maimane is in town to help inform people about the crises. Apparently there is a large number of people who still haven't been informed about it.
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Maimane had never seemed too concerned about the Cape. Until suddenly now.

It looks very much as if the DA has just had a massive wake up call. They've suddenly realised that their traditionally strongest constituency is about to revolt over their water mismanagement (which is only one of numerous odious issues slowly bubbling to the surface), so Maimane has embarked on a johnny-come-lately PR tour of Cape Town, spewing eloquent but meaningless soundbites all over the show.

In addition, it looks like they've dug their discarded Auntie Helen (and even more discarded "fart back " Tony Leon) out of the garbage heap of sidelined politically incorrect whiteness, and allowed her to open her mouth in public to help shore up haemorrhaging support. They must be worried to go to such extremes.

Seems like a decade of complacency, contempt for their original noble non-racial ethos and venal arse-creeping for votes in all the wrong places has finally come home to roost. The only thing the DA has to offer now is that the alternative to them is far worse.
 
Slootvreter said:
There are also people who think this is something fabricated by local government to get your money :rolleyes:
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Who are these people and should I be as concerned about what they think as I am about what the DA leadership thinks?
 
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Alan said:
Who are these people and and should I be as concerned about what they think as I am about what the DA leadership thinks?
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I am not sure what you are asking, but there are people who deny the water crisis and think it's a ploy by government to get us to pay more. FB is rife with comments. :crylaugh:
 
By the way, they had ample time, as far back as 1990, to work on this problem. They were warned in 1990 that the city could run out of water in 17 years. It did not happen in that time frame, but 10 years later, they are there now. Now excuses acceptable.

19961324_10154882369562134_8529229080931678310_n.jpg
 
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