Big business guzzled water as Cape Town’s dam levels plummeted

2020-11-10

CAPE TOWN - As dam levels dropped rapidly at the end of 2017 and Cape Town faced the looming threat of becoming the first major city where taps would run dry, households were forced to pull out all the stops to save water. But Coca Cola and other big industrial users were given a free pass.

Coca-Cola and Cape Town’s sweetheart Day Zero deal

A months-long investigation revealed how the City of Cape Town favoured corporate business, while imposing draconian measures on the city’s approximately four-million residents to force them to cut back their water usage.

Moreover, the city of Cape Town failed to provide the media with detailed information on water use by the city’s ten biggest consumers, including Coca Cola.

H20 Fail — While Capetonians were pulling out all the stops to save water during the drought, and getting heavily penalised if they didn’t, big business was not held to account by City authorities. Photo: Steve Kretzmann

Big business guzzled water

A follow-up investigation by Steve Kretzmann and Raymond Joseph finally was able to expose ten big industrial users’ water billings. While households were blamed for over-excessive water use, big industrial users were given little more than a slap on the wrist for their significant water consumption.

The data had been obtained from the City of Cape Town after a long Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) application and a subsequent drawn-out battle for clarity on the information supplied.

Poorly treated effluent sends refinery water use skyrocketing

Another follow-up story revealed how Cape Town’s failure to maintain a key wastewater treatment plant costs the city a billion litres of drinking water. A refinery which usually uses an effluent from a treatment plant switched to drinking water because the effluent is too dirty.

Steve Kretzmann

Steve Kretzmann is a freelance journalist with over 20 years of experience, based in South Africa.

Raymond Joseph

Raymond Joseph is an award-winning freelance investigative journalist. He heads up the southern African hub of the Centre for Cooperative Investigative Journalism.