The Japan Times - Sparkling pools, empty taps: Cape Town's stark water divide

EUR -
AED 4.02547
AFN 78.958383
ALL 99.102869
AMD 431.181955
ANG 1.961978
AOA 1003.890567
ARS 1184.765046
AUD 1.813586
AWG 1.97271
AZN 1.867466
BAM 1.955265
BBD 2.22659
BDT 133.983319
BGN 1.955265
BHD 0.412787
BIF 3277.602688
BMD 1.09595
BND 1.474296
BOB 7.619914
BRL 6.405394
BSD 1.102698
BTN 94.079244
BWP 15.358795
BYN 3.608812
BYR 21480.619234
BZD 2.215094
CAD 1.559263
CDF 3148.664634
CHF 0.944431
CLF 0.02729
CLP 1047.223301
CNY 7.980215
CNH 7.994999
COP 4582.945323
CRC 557.847278
CUC 1.09595
CUP 29.042674
CVE 110.234821
CZK 25.256829
DJF 196.376238
DKK 7.461451
DOP 69.640934
DZD 146.03502
EGP 55.406831
ERN 16.439249
ETB 145.347308
FJD 2.537019
FKP 0.847795
GBP 0.850992
GEL 3.01429
GGP 0.847795
GHS 16.970527
GIP 0.847795
GMD 78.997119
GNF 9480.074229
GTQ 8.45127
GYD 228.536272
HKD 8.520633
HNL 28.038338
HRK 7.531044
HTG 143.530764
HUF 404.54591
IDR 18346.949665
ILS 4.100568
IMP 0.847795
INR 93.650132
IQD 1430.891791
IRR 46360.405806
ISK 144.204462
JEP 0.847795
JMD 172.42419
JOD 0.777072
JPY 161.061946
KES 141.527433
KGS 95.002298
KHR 4365.330633
KMF 489.529208
KPW 986.361205
KRW 1599.015607
KWD 0.337157
KYD 0.910826
KZT 556.162432
LAK 23685.841231
LBP 98372.711411
LKR 324.07413
LRD 218.985421
LSL 20.902803
LTL 3.236056
LVL 0.66293
LYD 5.289988
MAD 10.429326
MDL 19.551233
MGA 5069.578931
MKD 61.05679
MMK 2300.919896
MNT 3846.361639
MOP 8.775473
MRU 43.593447
MUR 49.000806
MVR 16.923331
MWK 1897.317993
MXN 22.386696
MYR 4.861215
MZN 70.003894
NAD 20.902803
NGN 1681.066767
NIO 40.290501
NOK 11.790932
NPR 149.910449
NZD 1.95777
OMR 0.421946
PAB 1.09595
PEN 4.037053
PGK 4.46999
PHP 62.764717
PKR 306.904853
PLN 4.245513
PYG 8757.469729
QAR 3.989667
RON 4.952931
RSD 116.586887
RUB 93.840941
RWF 1555.449869
SAR 4.110221
SBD 9.312612
SCR 15.97682
SDG 658.021292
SEK 10.947921
SGD 1.470849
SHP 0.861245
SLE 24.933268
SLL 22981.523891
SOS 624.324825
SRD 40.248477
STD 22683.951476
SVC 9.589967
SYP 14249.994157
SZL 20.902803
THB 37.792726
TJS 11.899889
TMT 3.833642
TND 3.357047
TOP 2.638671
TRY 41.641737
TTD 7.422798
TWD 36.332658
TZS 2923.758392
UAH 45.158896
UGX 4009.400205
USD 1.09595
UYU 46.167964
UZS 14171.813622
VES 77.086835
VND 28252.54745
VUV 134.896075
WST 3.078778
XAF 652.705611
XAG 0.037037
XAU 0.000361
XCD 2.966325
XDR 0.817067
XOF 652.705611
XPF 119.331742
YER 269.409315
ZAR 20.929909
ZMK 9864.868719
ZMW 30.636217
ZWL 352.89544
  • RBGPF

    69.0200

    69.02

    +100%

  • SCS

    -0.0600

    10.68

    -0.56%

  • GSK

    -2.4800

    36.53

    -6.79%

  • NGG

    -3.4600

    65.93

    -5.25%

  • BTI

    -2.0600

    39.86

    -5.17%

  • BCE

    0.0500

    22.71

    +0.22%

  • CMSC

    0.0300

    22.29

    +0.13%

  • RIO

    -3.7600

    54.67

    -6.88%

  • CMSD

    0.1600

    22.83

    +0.7%

  • JRI

    -0.8600

    11.96

    -7.19%

  • BCC

    0.8100

    95.44

    +0.85%

  • AZN

    -5.4600

    68.46

    -7.98%

  • RELX

    -3.2800

    48.16

    -6.81%

  • VOD

    -0.8700

    8.5

    -10.24%

  • BP

    -2.9600

    28.38

    -10.43%

  • RYCEF

    -1.5500

    8.25

    -18.79%

Sparkling pools, empty taps: Cape Town's stark water divide
Sparkling pools, empty taps: Cape Town's stark water divide

Sparkling pools, empty taps: Cape Town's stark water divide

On Cape Town's beaches, swimmers shower off sand from their feet. Irrigation pipes water the region's famed vineyards. And Shadrack Mogress fumes as he fills a barrel with water so he can flush his toilet.

Text size:

It's been four years since South Africa's tourist capital nearly ran dry, during a drought that left the city limping towards a "Day Zero" when all the pipes would empty.

Now water flows liberally -- but not for everyone.

South Africa is the most unequal country in the world, with race playing a determining factor, a World Bank report said last week.

The taps at Mogress's house in the township of Khayelitsha run only intermittently, and rarely with full pressure.

So at 56 years old, he wakes up early to fill up a barrel while the water is running, so that his household of six can drink and wash all day.

“We also need to take from that water to use the toilet, which is an insult at the end of the day," Mogress said.

“We have toilets here. We have showers here. We cannot use those," he said. "Our children go to school in the morning at about 6:00 a.m. Sometimes there's no water at that time.”

Mogress said he contacted city officials several times about the issues but has not heard back.

“We're sitting within the middle of a pandemic here, and we do not even have water to wash our hands,” he said.

City trucks that deliver water to the community are unreliable, Sandile Zatu, a 45-year-old resident said.

"We have no choice but to wake up in the morning and try to fill our bucket as much as possible," he added.

- Worse than ‘Day Zero’ -

During the drought, city-wide efforts to save water created a sense of shared purpose. Everyone avoided flushing toilets, gave up on watering plants, and let their cars sit dirty for months.

"At that time, we knew that we were sitting with a problem," Mogress said. "But it is actually worse, because we do have water and we know that."

Swimming pools in Cape Town's posh suburbs do have water, but the city estimates that about 31 neighbourhoods have no access to clean water.

That includes sprawling districts filled with shacks, but also working-class neighbourhoods.

Ironically, Covid brought better water supplies to some areas.

The state of disaster that empowered lockdown measures also allowed authorities to deliver more water to encourage better washing.

If the state of disaster is called off, the city will lose funding to deliver water, city water official Zahid Badroodien said.

- Future droughts -

Badroodien said the city was investing millions of rand in the aging water infrastructure, adding that a Day Zero was "inevitable".

But it is harder for the city to provide reliable water services in some areas due to "funding being tied up in existing projects to try and establish services in existing communities."

"At the same time, the safety of our officials becomes an issue in these areas, where I know for a fact that our tankers have been hijacked, our officials have been hijacked, they've been held up at gunpoint," he said.

Jo Barnes, a water expert at Stellenbosch University, said the city has shown poor planning for future droughts.

"To not plan for the next drought -- which may be around the corner -- sounds like managerial suicide to me," she said.

"We're getting more and more people, and we have the same volume of water. So, unless we do something magic, we're going to run into the same problem again."

Y.Watanabe--JT