Western Cape Premier, Helen Zille is on Wednesday expected to meet with school principals to discuss emergency plans in the event of Day Zero, now set for April the 16th, amid the crippling drought in province.
The premier is expected to meet with principals of about 1 000 schools that draw water from the Western Cape Water Supply System.
Nearly 400 of the schools in the province have existing boreholes, but these would require some work to function optimally and for hygiene and fire safety purposes.
Zille’s spokesperson, Michael Mpofu says the purpose of the meeting is to brief the principals as to what contingency plans are in place for each school should day zero be reached.
He says: “The intention is to bring down demand as we have been saying that we should stick to 50 liters per person per day but we are saying in the event of day zero we also have a disaster plan that will kick in.”
Meanwhile Department of Water Affairs and Sanitation spokesperson Sputnik Ratau urged South Africans to change to conserve water. He says if South Africans do not change their water consumption there will be trouble.
Ratau has warned against the over use of borehole water as it could have adverse results. Some of the suggestions by authorities on how to save water include, taking shorter showers, and reusing shower and bath water for the toilet.
