Western Cape premier Helen Zille has slammed Water and Sanitation Minister Nomvula Mokonyane for her department’s role in the Cape Town water crisis. Speaking at a DA gathering in Cape Town on the party’s plans to beat "day zero" — the day the taps are turned off in the city — Zille criticised the department’s failure to provide augmentation schemes to prevent water shortages. "I was the mayor in the mid-2000s and the national department says they warned us then that we would run out of water. Well‚ if they warned us then and it’s their mandate to supply water‚ why didn’t they do it?" Zille said. She said she had heard "through the grapevine" that Mokonyane would be in Cape Town this weekend and wanted to co-ordinate the drought response team. "It is not her responsibility to oversee a disaster‚ it is minister [Des] van Rooyen’s ... she is very welcome to come and look at our plans but she is even more welcome to tell us how she plans to provide bulk water‚ which is her responsibili...

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