The City has indicated its controversial proposed drought levy will be scrapped at a council meeting today, following a massive public outcry against the charge.
Questions, however, have been asked about the timing of the apparent about-turn by the DA on the levy after the majority DA city council voted in favour of considering the proposal, while provincial powers later slammed the charge.
Mayor Patricia de Lille has come under fire over the proposal, with DA national
structures recommending to caucus they formally bring a resolution to council that removes her from any role in managing and directing the City’s response to the prolonged drought during the period of investigations against her.
Yesterday, De Lille spoke despite the recommendation, saying the crisis was bigger than politics.
“This is about the provision of water and should not be politicised in any way, as we have seen in recent days.
"While politics may be playing itself out in a range of other matters, water is the one thing that we cannot play
politics with.”
She said the proposed charge was “likely” to be dropped, after a wide-ranging outcry that the charge was unfair. “I understand that response and it has personally been a tough lesson for the City,” De Lille said.
On December 5, 144 council members voted in favour of the proposal to consider a drought charge and for the full details of the drought charge to be included in the 2017/18 adjustment budget, subject to the necessary authority being granted for immediate implementation thereof, and that a media campaign be launched immediately to ensure that the public was aware of the comment period on the proposal.
But in the minutes of that council meeting, it is noted that a legal adviser said the proposal was not legally compliant as it related to the
public participation process which was still to take place. But the councillors nevertheless voted in favour of the proposal to consider the charge.
The City did not answer questions about the legality of the charge yesterday.
While the council consists of majority DA councillors, with 154 seats of a total of 231, about a week ago DA provincial chairperson Anton Bredell released a statement that the DA in the province made a formal submission objecting to the proposed water levy.
Bredell said the party in the province did not support placing residents under financial strain in an attempt to generate a greater income for drought disaster relief.
Bredell wanted to make use of the public participation process to debate the issue with the City of Cape Town.
“We need to separate state and party. That was a council decision. Although the
majority (of councillors) are DA members, we also allow members to differ from one another within the DA.
"We encourage open debate on issues. That decision was to send this (proposal) out for public participation. It wasn’t for or against the levy,” Bredell said, adding that the party’s City caucus had now decided it would not support the charge.
He denied that his statement was issued to add to negative sentiment about De Lille or push her out of the party. “It’s nonsense. People like to conflate the matters,” he said.
The DA’s chief whip in the City, Shaun August, could not be reached for comment.
De Lille said the water crisis had reached a new severity, necessitating a series of new emergency measures. This will include the introduction of a punitive tariff.
She said authorities could no longer just ask people to stop wasting water, but had to force them.
“We have listened to the comments of thousands of residents asking for fairness. Council will on Friday (today) be voting on a punitive tariff that will charge residents exponentially higher rates for water usage above 6 000 litres per month,” De Lille said.
She said she would fight to ensure that the proposed punitive tariff exempted those who were using less than 6 000 litres per month.