Cape Town – Emergency funding to stave off the dreaded Day Zero, when the taps in Cape Town will run dry, could be more easily accessed should the national government declare the drought in many of South Africa’s provinces a national disaster.
The meeting of the inter-ministerial task team meeting on the drought and water scarcity has announced this process could be finalised soon, with a declaration of a national disaster possible by Valentine’s Day, February 14.
This will legally assign the responsibility to the national executive to coordinate the disaster, while a declaration is being considered to be finalized within a period of a month.
We are convinced that this will enhance current measures to deal with the disaster.
Van Rooyen said the drought in the Cape Provinces (Western, Northern and Eastern Cape) was having a "profound negative impact" on the economies of the affected provinces.
Government can therefore not sit idle while the situation deteriorates.
"To this effect, the Inter Ministerial Task Team (IMTT) on drought and water scarcity (as established in 2015) has been actively championing integrated efforts to ensure that the country responds effectively to the drought situation.
He said current provincial dam levels made for grim reading.
Eastern Cape: 60.7% Gauteng: 94.6% Free State: 64.9% Mpumalanga: 76.9% KwaZulu-Natal: 52.6% North West: 67.4% Northern Cape: 76.2% Limpopo: 65.3% Western Cape: 23.7% National: 59.6% "Fellow South Africans, while we acknowledge that the drought has become a huge challenge, a number of measures have been implemented nationally and are bearing fruits," Van Rooyen said.
Working together, we can save water," Van Rooyen said.