The City of Cape Town has announced that it is to receive R553 million in funding for water projects from the national government.
The City said in a statement on Monday the funds must be used in line with its "application for the funding for the Cape Flats, Atlantis and Table Mountain Group Aquifer recharge projects and in terms of the Municipal Disaster Recovery Grant Conditions".
"This past week the City of Cape Town received communication that we will be receiving grant funding for drought relief efforts from the national government," the City said.
"Following an application for grant funding, we are very grateful for this support and look forward to receiving an allocation of R553.05 million. I will be writing a letter of acknowledgement, and thanks to the national government for this support.
"The funds must be used in line with the City’s application for the funding for the Cape Flats, Atlantis, and Table Mountain Group Aquifer recharge projects and in terms of the Municipal Disaster Recovery Grant Conditions."
The City added: "The direct conditional grant funding for drought relief was received from the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (incorporating the National Disaster Management Centre) in conjunction with National Treasury, and I would like to thank these departments as well as the Western Cape provincial government for the role they played in facilitating access to this funding support, which will strengthen our efforts to ensure water security and build a water-resilient city.
"Cape Town has felt the impact of climate change with three years of extremely low rainfall and, as a City, we have all come together to navigate our way through this difficult period.
"I commend Team Cape Town for all their brilliant water-saving efforts and ask that we continue on this trend as our dams must still recover fully.
"We have received very good rains this winter, but as we head into the summer months we must constantly remember to adhere to our new relationship with water and continue using it as sparingly as possible."