Paul, no it is not!     Cape Town owns and operates its own water resource from building dams through treatment to billing.
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Blown budgets?   Rather than spend money on water projects the department is constructing a new R250,000,000 head office.
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The city should have planned for water supplies from desalination and recycling a decade ago: the drought we are in now is not unique and is  not a surprise.   Go look at yearly stats from the 40's until now and every couple of years sees a patch of 350mm instead of 750mm
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I live in the boland, which supplies 98% of the city's water.   We are more than a bit irritated that we now sit with water restrictions and 4B tariffs due to the gross mismanagement of the city's growth and resources.    We do not share in the city's rates & taxes bounty by the way.
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Lastly, we will fight draining the 500m year old acquifer unless the city finds a way of guaranteeing the rest of the province it will not be contaminated.   That they cannot do...