It’s time for a complete change of approach to the Western Cape drought problem. What the city/province needs to do is follow exactly the same procedure as the government used to set up the independent power producers.
In other words call for tenders to supply water and guarantee to buy that water at a fixed price over the next 20 years.
That will enable the desalination firms or those offering alternate technologies to raise the finance and get to work on a permanent solution to our water problems.
The result of the IPP project, as we now know, became the international standard best practice for procuring renewable energy for the electricity grid. It should work even better for water as desalination produces a steady supply without the variations associated with renewable electricity.
The other advantage is that the project would be funded by the water producers and would cost the Council nothing. The additional costs of the water would go to consumers over the next 20 years as they use the water.
The City Council has said that desalination is too expensive, but the costs of not desalinating are even greater as we are now finding out.
We have an emergency on our hands and we need to slash through the red tape and follow the example set by the IPP project. It works.
* Janine Myburgh is the President of the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.