The City of Cape Town is continuing to implement its temporary emergency Covid-19 action plan in informal settlements to help vulnerable communities reduce the spread of the virus, despite challenges, such as protest action, which impacts on the service. As part of this plan, more than 213 million litres of water for emergency relief have been delivered to informal settlements since the beginning of lockdown.

The City of Cape Town is often unable to provide standard services to communities that formed after land occupations due to various legal and technical factors. With the pandemic in mind, Council recently approved that R88,5 million be reprioritised so the City can continue to action its Covid-19 temporary emergency services to help communities, who have unlawfully occupied land, and who do not have easy access to water, to reduce the spread of the virus.

However, efforts to provide emergency water relief does not come without its challenges. Last month protesters smashed the windscreen of a City contractor’s truck and tried to set it alight, while it was en route to providing emergency relief to informal settlements in the Dunoon area. No one in the truck was injured.

‘Every effort is being made to continue to provide emergency water relief to communities where permanent services cannot be provided, but when our limited resources are attacked and damaged, it doesn’t help the cause,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Water and Waste, Alderman Xanthea Limberg.

What are the Covid-19 temporary emergency services?

The City’s Informal Settlements Basic Services (ISBS) branch, within the Water and Sanitation Department, produced a Covid-19 Response Programme, including an implementation plan, early on in the lockdown period, in line with the National Declaration of Disaster. This corresponded with the broad City initiative.

Since last year, the City rounded up all available resources to ensure the temporary emergency water delivery programme is sustained into the new financial year, while complying with legislation.

‘The programme focused on increasing access to water and sanitation, given the importance of personal hygiene in reducing the spread of the virus in communities. The focus has been in particular on underserviced communities due to settlements being on privately-owned land or where permanent services cannot be installed due to issues such as the suitability of the land. The disaster declaration enabled the City to temporarily expand its reach to residents it would not ordinarily be able to service due to legislative and other constraints. 

‘Over 213 million litres of water have been delivered, through a combination of trucks and plastic (‘Jojo’ style) tanks to these communities who were unlawfully established prior to the pandemic on privately-owned land, on sand dunes, on train tracks, in stormwater detention ponds, and on other land where there are constraints to the City’s ability to provide conventional services.

‘To date, the emergency services plan has been implemented very successfully, thanks to good cooperation between communities, City teams, ward councillors and subcouncils,’ said Alderman Limberg.

‘Actioning the large-scale plan has largely been made possible through the City’s reprioritisation of more than R263,5 million grant funding from the allocations of relevant City departments to pay for the service during the 2019/2020 as well as the 2020/2021 financial year. The additional R88,5 million that has been reprioritised for the 2021/2022 financial year will also assist in continuing the service.

‘The City continues to work towards providing a sustainable water service, within our available resources. Officials are hard at work preparing and are in the process of connecting tanks and standpipes where possible to our water network to alleviate the pressure on the trucks and to ensure residents have access to water over the coming months.

‘The increased servicing and janitorial services to all toilet types will continue.

‘The City is continuously monitoring and assessing the temporary water and sanitation emergency services being provided and will make amendments where needed.

‘Despite the challenges that are faced, thank you to all stakeholders, including communities, ward councillors, subcouncils, other government spheres, as well as City officials, who have all worked together to implement this Covid-19 temporary emergency response plan,’ said the Alderman Limberg.

Source: City Of Cape Town