Cape Town is a committed ICLEI Member and the host of ICLEI Africa Secretariat. Photo by "Today is a good day" Flickr Creative Commons.

Mayor’s water use regulated

The home of Cape Town Executive Mayor, Helen Zille will now be provided a specific daily amount of water, at the normal flow rate, thanks to a newly installed water management device. The new water strategy is already saving citywide 50,000 US$/month.

The City is doing this to cut residents’ water bill affected by leaks in the plumbing, and of course to save water. This will give access to clean water to more households, as per their constitutional right.

Every year 30 millions dollars are spent to provide 44 liters a day per person of free water. National legislation requires a minimum of 25 litres per person per day. Where more than eight people live in a household, the amount of free water is increased accordingly.

This ensures that households receive 6 000 liters of water per month. This quantity can be increased according to an additional amount to what citizens commit to pay.

The water management device is set to switch on at a fixed time every morning and will only switch off once the household has used its set quota of water for the day. If households use less than their quota in a day, the amount not used will be carried over to the next day.

This will replace the current 'trickle system' used for debt management with these devices. As a further incentive for people to use water responsibly, the City will write off any water bill arrears if citizens who remain within their daily quota and pay for any extra water use for 6 months.

To keep on providing free water services, Cape Town must reduce debts and wastage. So far 30 000 water management devices have been installed free of charge while leaks were fixed. This strategy already resulted in a saving of 156 million liters of water worth 50,000 US$/month.

More information

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