Ratepayer groups question the fairness of Cape Town's sanitation tariffs based on water meter sizes.
City of Cape Town watchdogs and ratepayer groups have renewed criticism of the municipality's fixed water and sanitation charges, questioning who benefits from its latest tariff proposals and decision to base fixed sanitation charges on the size of a property’s water meter.
Civic Organisation, STOP CoCT, argues that while larger water meters may justify higher fixed charges because they can deliver greater volumes of water, the same principle does not apply to sanitation services.
The City has since defended its proposal, citing that the use of meter size currently serves as a reasonable and practical engineering proxy for the level of infrastructure capacity reserved for a property and is also the basis by which the City determines indigency relief.
STOP CoCT’s founder, Sandra Dickson, argues that water meters do not remove sewage from a property.
