Cape Town's new water programme faces delays, risking water supply goals
Cape Town’s water projects are behind schedule and a city report has warned the delays could trigger water restrictions — though officials maintain there’s no cause for alarm just yet.
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Cape Town's efforts to improve its water supply are significantly delayed, prompting fears of a return to water restrictions.
A new city report warns that unless key projects accelerate, the city's water security may be at risk. Siseko Mbandezi, the City’s political head of Water and Sanitation, stated that there is no "immediate risk" but acknowledged the urgency of the situation, assuring residents that his department is working diligently to secure Cape Town’s water future.
According to the City's Water Outlook, delays in key projects had pushed back the city’s flagship New Water Programme by at least a year, threatening the goal of producing 300m litres of new water a day by 2030.
The report, has warned that more delays could force the city to bring back water restrictions and put its 2030 supply target at risk.
The programme lies at the heart of Cape Town’s plan to ensure the taps never ran dry again.
It included tapping underground aquifers, recycling treated wastewater and desalinating seawater to boost supply.
But the report confirmed the timeline for completing these projects had slipped from 2030 all the way to December 2031.
The city blamed the delay on a mix of red tape, lengthy approval processes, strict checks for high-value investments, the experimental nature of the work and the rising cost of infrastructure.
Cape Town’s biggest and most expensive water schemes, were the Berg River–Voëlvlei Augmentation Scheme, which was rescheduled for 2029, and both the Faure New Water Scheme and the permanent desalination plant, which were only expected to come online in 2031.
The report described the Berg River–Voëlvlei project, managed by the national water and sanitation department, as “critical for Cape Town’s water security".
That strategy had aimed to bring new water schemes online five years ahead of demand and to prepare for severe droughts that could occur once every 200 years.
Since 2019, the price of producing new water had surged, from R24 to R50 per cubic metre — while conventional surface water schemes had also become more expensive.
The city cautioned that temporary, low-level restrictions might be needed in the next few years as it dealt with ageing infrastructure and prepared for maintenance on the Riviersonderend Tunnel — the system that carried about half of Cape Town’s water from the Theewaterskloof and Berg River dams.
The outlook showed that Cape Town’s water system remained stable, with water use at about 160 litres per person per day, down from more than 200 litres before the 2018 drought.
The report warned that reducing consumption by more than 20% would have “significant impacts on households", while cuts above 30% were “believed to be no longer possible".
A new water conservation and demand management strategy was expected to be presented to council later in 2025 to help slow the growth in demand as the population increased.
Mbandezi said in response: "We review the long-term balance between available water supply and projected demand to ensure the city’s resilience against future water shortages."