STATEMENT BY BRETT HERRON, GOOD MEMBER OF WESTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL PARLIAMENT AND SECRETARY-GENERAL
10 SEPTEMBER 2020
The City of Cape Town Council should reassess water tariffs and its water plan.
It is immoral to punish ratepayers at a time they can least afford it by continuing to charge what are in effect drought surcharges, when our dams are all full.
Residents cannot be a DA cash-cow to fund a bloated administration with high management costs.
The Council introduced a fixed pipe levy as a mitigation measure for lost water revenue as a result of the drought. At the time, then Mayor Patricia De Lille advocated for a temporary drought levy which could be abandoned when the city’s water supply was more secure as a result of the water augmentation measures or good rains.
The DA caucus, egged on by DA national leadership, voted this down. The DA leadership then instructed the caucus to remove De Lille’s authority over water and move it to Deputy Mayor Ian Neilson.
The Council also introduced punitive water tariffs to persuade residents to save water. De Lille broke with the DA caucus, who approved the punitive tariffs, and pleaded in a council meeting that the City not punish those who are saving water by imposing high tariffs across the board. This prompted a motion of no confidence, again approved by the DA national leadership, against De Lille. They accused her of being “financially reckless” and that the city would lose “hundreds of millions of Rand” because of her.
In the end the City over-recovered on its water revenue projections and residents are being over-charged for water.
The costs of implementing desalination plants out-weighed the benefits. Less money spent eradicating alien vegetation in river courses would generate more water, besides creating local jobs. But it wouldn’t add money to the city’s coffers.
The City’s leadership is arrogantly forging ahead when there is no justification for the permanent surcharges imposed against the advice of Mayor De Lille and the water experts who were advising her.
The DA leadership wanted expensive desalination and a fixed pipe levy – the actual levy depends on the size of your pipe! I guess for the DA size matters.