City of Cape Town withdraws drought levy proposal

The City of Cape Town has scrapped the proposed introduction of a drought levy, after the proposal was withdrawn at a special sitting on Friday.

Council members debated the proposal following strong public backlash to the idea since it was mooted on Sunday, January 14.

Opposition and ruling party councillors said a U-turn on the proposal should be strongly considered following the public’s input, some of which included 55 000 inputs from one website alone.

The council will discuss one other agenda item after lunch, that of introducing punitive tariff measures for high-end users.

Deputy mayor Ian Neilson added an amendment to the agenda item, which could also see mayor Patricia de Lille stripped of some of her abilities to handle the drought.