CAPE TOWN - Informal settlements account for less than 4% of water consumption and it is the plush areas that use the most water.
This was made clear during a council meeting on Wednesday.
Mayor Patricia de Lille said the city was facing a water crisis as there was just 17.4% of usable water left in dams compared to 37.6% the same time last year.
De Lille said that informal settlements consume less than 4% of the available water.
"Five families would use one tap. People in plush homes use more water. This is where the wastage is taking place. The more water you use the more you will pay. Those stubborn people who are carrying on as if it's business as usual are playing with all our futures. Since the new target was implemented on July 1, we have not even come close to 500 million litres with shocking over consumption of 643 million litres per day in the past week.
"Due to the impacts of climate change we are experiencing our third winter of below annual average rainfall. The little rain we had in the past few weeks has had an insignificant impact on our dam levels and too many people have relaxed their water saving efforts thinking that the few drops of rain have saved us.
"The drought is the new normal and requires all of us to radically change our thinking, our over-reliance on rain water and importantly our behaviour towards this scarce resource. High consumption households have been warned and I am personally going to be joining the water department to install water management devices at properties who cannot justify their high water uses in the next few days
"If people do not change their water usage, residents will no longer have water in their houses and collect water at a water tank. We will not allow a well-run city to run out of water," she said.
De Lille added there were water streams under the city and it was yet to be determined how much water could be extracted from them. She also said that people who collect water from streams and other sources do so at their own risk.
The city had also acquired the necessary sterilisation equipment for water drawn from the Table Mountain Aquifer. It is estimated that there are 400 million cubic metres of water in the Table Mountain group of aquifers.