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Zille not a meteorologist nor a Scientist: SAWS

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The South African Weather Service (SAWS) says it’s disturbed by utterances by Western Cape Premier, Helen Zille, that the province is facing a crisis because the SA Weather Services got their predictions all wrong. The weather body called the Premier’s statement extremely opportunistic in the midst of a water crisis.

SAWS is tasked with providing timely and accurate scientific data in the field of meteorology.

The war of words has broken out between SAWS and Zille, with the latter saying that SAWS models didn’t work anymore, in an era of climate change.

In a strongly worded statement, SAWS called the Premier’s utterances regrettable and said it had requested her to refrain from casting aspersions on the work of the Service. It said the Premier is not a Meteorologist nor a Scientist.

It added that blaming the weather, climate and the Weather Service is a cop-out for policy inaction and ineptitude in implementation of multidisciplinary research and reports that have long pointed to the water challenge in the country, the Western Cape and in Cape Town.

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