Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning
(1) What are the water restriction levels at all the municipalities in the province;
(2) whether his Department is ensuring that the implementation of these levels are adhered to; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details;
(3) whether drought-relief budgets have been allocated to each municipality; if not, why not; if so, what is the breakdown of the budget allocation per municipality;
(4) whether his Department keeps records of boreholes at private homes and businesses; if not; why not; if so,
(5) whether his Department knows how many boreholes there are and how much water is being extracted from the soil; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details
4.1 The schedule attached hereto as Annexure A indicates the various Water Restriction Levels in all Western Cape Municipalities.
4.2 The Department is ensuring compliance with the Water Restriction Levels by monitoring the reduction in demand, initiating water conservation awareness campaigns and in addition, provide support to undertake local law enforcement actions to ensure compliance.
The Department developed a standardised restrictions calculator to assist municipalities with water source risk identification and the determination of the appropriate restriction level.
4.3 During the last few months, my Department undertook high level and detailed assessments to determine the potential areas of risk and vulnerability in municipalities in terms of water security. As an outcome, municipalities were categorised into high, medium and low risk, each with their own tailor made demand management and water augmentation strategies.
Giving effect to these strategies, the Department of Local Government secured the support from key sector Departments, such as the Department of Water and Sanitation. Engineering and project management resources were made available to assist the high risk municipalities. In support of the projects identified in these strategies, an amount of R105 710 million was earmarked for drought relief in the 2017/18 financial year.
Annexure B provides the name of the beneficiary Municipality, Project Name, Grant name and total contribution per project.
4.4 The Department of Local Government does not keep record of boreholes at private homes and businesses as there is no legal requirement in terms of the National Water Act to do so. Some municipalities however, have by-laws requiring the registration of boreholes e.g. City of Cape Town.
In terms of the provisions of section 3[3] of the National Water Act, Act 36 of 1998, as amended, the National Government has the power to regulate the use, flow and control of all water in the Republic. Registration of water use has to take place in terms of the requirements of Sections 26[1][c] and 34[2].
4.5 The Department of Water and Sanitation are the custodians of keeping record of boreholes. However, the Department recently acquired the services of a group of professional geohydrologists that are now in a process of collecting and plotting all bore holes in the Western Cape. This information will be limited to National, Provincial and Municipal use and should be available soon, in both table and map (GIS) format.
