Water savings not enough to ward off tariff increase
Kouga residents will have to cut back their water usage even further over the next two months to avoid steep tariff increases.
This is the warning from Infrastructure, Planning and Development portfolio councillor Desmond Petersen following the release of the latest water consumption figures.
Petersen said the Kouga Council was pleased that the latest figures showed a decrease compared to the previous year but warned that the savings to date were not enough to ward off the threat of tariff increases.
“We received a mandate from the Nelson Mandela Metro, who supplies most of our water for domestic use, to decrease our usage by 15 percent, however, our savings over the past month were only 10,5 percent.
“This means we will have to cut back our usage drastically over the next two months if we are to achieve the 15% target and avoid having to pay more for water,” he said.
Kouga’s usage of Metro water totalled 17 166kl per day for the period 19 December 2016 to 18 January 2017.
In comparison the usage for the prior year, measured from 18 December 2015 to 20 January 2016, totalled 19 171kl/day.
“The figures show that residents and holiday-makers made an effort to save water. We would like to commend everybody for their efforts while pleading for more savings.
“These next two months are critical as our usage will determine whether or not the water tariff has to be increased,” he said.
Water restrictions and punitive water tariffs have been in place across the Kouga region since 1 January 2017. The Council has warned that even stricter punitive tariffs might have to be introduced if water usage is not cut by at least 15% by the end of March 2017.
What are the coing to do with that extra money
1. Buld a dam ?
2. Lift the dam wall ?
3. Bye some thing that is not related to water ?
The same situation exists in Cape Town millions of rands have been paid as a result of the increased tariff but no plan appears to exist as to how those funds will be applied hopefully it will be spent on raging water infrastructure in the first instance. The surprising thing though was that this was intended to highlight the need to reduce water usage and manage the resource better. Cape Town has found that there are 20,000 people /homes (mainly from affluent areas) who simply have paid no heed to the need to reduce water usage. These people are now being identified and targeted for additional penalties. The tragedy in St Francis is that as you go around there are still many homes who continue to use sprinkler systems and make absolutely no effort. Why would someone want to water the grass verge or even the lawn when water supply is so much art risk. Some of these are absent owners and possibly don’t appreciate that they are causing an ongoing problem, some pretend that they are using borehole water but all excessive users need to be identified as one person/culprit I spoke to responded that he doesn’t care he spent a lot on his garden and can afford an increased tariff. Perhaps other methods are needed to get people to comply. Right now however the focus should be on getting usage down rather than worrying how the funds raised are going to be spent.
One just has to walk around St Francis in the morning to see all the gardens that are being irrigated, mostly by owners who have left town. It’s so obvious when one sees a green lawn, puddles of water in the road, next to an unirrigated one. Maybe an appeal should be made to those owners to have their sprinkler systems turned off?