Damn, will the City of Cape Town give us a break?

On July 1 residents of the peninsula with houses valued over R1 million were hit with an R8,21-a-day tariff to “recover the cost of maintaining the service”.

You can read more about it here just in case you missed where that extra R250 a month has come from.

And now? Well, now we “may have to” pay a monthly “drought charge” for about three years from February, as “officials try and raise R1 billion annually,” reports BusinessTech:

Details about the proposed charge are contained in a report to be considered by the council of the City of Cape Town, which was signed on Friday by, among others, Mayor Patricia de Lille.

“If the necessary authority is granted, the January 2018 adjustment budget will include, for consideration by council, a submission to implement this drought charge… to raise an amount of approximately R420m in the 2017/18 financial year,” the report says.

“In future years the drought charge would be required to raise funding of approximately R1bn per year while the dams recover from the unprecedented drought conditions.”

So how much are we going t0 pay? According to IOL:

Households will soon be paying between R45 and R60 extra every month as part of a drought levy, if mayor Patricia de Lille has her way in council on Tuesday.

For more affluent households whose properties are valued in excess of R3 million, the drought levy could reach R350 and is to be billed on top of municipal rates and taxes.

Families whose properties are valued under R400 000 will be exempt from the drought charge, which is set to implemented in February.

Here’s a look at that handy table that has been floating around social media:

The report went on to say that the charge “was not meant to be punitive”. Sure, buddy:

“[It] is necessary to ensure water supply for all residents as acute water shortages will have dire implications for all residents and the local economy,” it said.

The report said that with dams at dangerously low levels and based on current consumption, “day zero”, when most taps are expected to run dry, could be in May 2018.

“At this point residents would have to collect water from approximately 200 collection sites across the city,” it said.

“There are still many households who are not saving enough water… the city has to bring additional water supplies online as speedily as possible in order to avoid acute water shortages.”

The City of Cape Town’s administration, according to the report, had reprioritised projects to focus on water augmentation. As a result, R473 million had been diverted from other departments to fund new water augmentation programmes.

But that’s not the only bad news regarding the drought.

The City also announced that as of January 1, we will have to abide by Level 6 water restrictions, which will “restrict residential households to 10 500 litres a month and compel non-residential customers to cut their water consumption by 45% compared with 2015,” reports Business Live:

“The use of borehole water for outdoor purposes is discouraged in order to preserve groundwater resources. Borehole/wellpoint water should rather be used for toilet flushing.”

Houses that used more than 10‚500 litres of water a month‚ as well as complexes using more than that per unit‚ would be “prioritised for enforcement”.

Fun times ahead, hey?

[source:businesstech&businesslive&IOL]