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

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.

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.