Cape Town will not have to turn off water supplies after all if current consumption levels are maintained, the region’s governing party has said.
Amid a drought, the city had set a 50-litre daily limit and had told citizens “Day Zero” was approaching when people would have to queue at standpipes.
But water-saving efforts in the South African city have seen the day pushed back from April to 27 August.
Seasonal rains should mean that date is now averted, the city said.
“It is now up to all of us. If we keep on saving, we will not have to queue for water this year,” city government leaders said in a statement.
The Democratic Alliance, the opposition party that runs the city of 4 million, said Wednesday that taps will remain open if residents continue to consume water at current restricted levels and there is adequate winter rainfall, which is expected soon.
Party leader Mmusi Maimane says the city cut its consumption in the last three years by 60 percent to between 510 and 520 million liters (135 million and 137 million gallons) a day.
The city had resorted to increasingly drastic measures to clamp down on water usage, including “naming and shaming” the 100 addresses using the most water and fining residents who failed to comply with the 50 litre (13 gallon) limit per person.
Although the risk that piped water supplies will be shut off this year has receded, politicians and environmentalists warn that the water crisis is there to stay in Cape Town, as year-on-year rainfall levels dwindle.
