Cape Town – Minister of Finance Malusi Gigaba has approved the City of Cape Town’s request to deviate from Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) regulations to urgently deal with the drought, the City said on Monday.

The City in a statement said Gigaba informed it that he had been advised that potential regulatory challenges might hamper successful implementation of water resilience measures whose aim is to help the City continue to provide water to its residents.

City of Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille explained that the minister’s go-ahead allowed her “to immediately incur and approve unforeseen and unavoidable expenditure in terms of the MFMA”.

“This means we no longer have to call a special council meeting, but I will report on these budgetary adjustments to council in December.”

De Lille said the approval would also allow the City to speed up procurement processes.

“I want to extend a big thank you to team Cape Town because the help of residents and businesses is vital as the City of Cape Town rolls out its plan to secure more alternative water sources.”

She said, currently, dam storage levels were at 38.5%, with usable water at 28.5%.

“Consumption is at 585 million litres of collective usage per day. Together, we have managed to bring consumption down to 585 million litres of collective use per day from pre-restriction consumption levels of 1.1 billion litres per day,” said De Lille.

She thanked residents for their efforts as the City adapted to the “new normal”.

“We will not allow a well-run City to run out of water,” she said adding that the City was bringing more alternative water sources into its network while residents continued to save.