If you receive warnings that Cape Town’s dwindling water supply is unsafe‚ ignore them.

The City of Cape Town insists that the messages — many of them being circulated on WhatsApp groups linked to schools — are false.

One of the hoaxes says: “If you drink water out of the tap which is not boiled you can pick up serious tummy bugs and skin damages‚ so please alert people around you.”

The level of Cape Town’s main dams is expected to fall to around 20% when weekly measurements are taken on Monday‚ and Xanthea Limberg‚ the mayoral committee member responsible for water‚ said: “While the last 10% of a dam’s volume is difficult to treat to acceptable standards‚ we have not yet reached this level.

 “Residents are assured that water undergoes extensive filtration as well as chemical treatment before it is pressure-fed into the reticulation system. Water quality is controlled at the treatment plants by the process controllers who perform tests on an hourly basis in the on-site labs in order to make the necessary adjustments.”

Limberg said the city council also complied with “rigorous” Department of Water and Sanitation water quality checks.

“This means that water quality is closely monitored via a large number of water samples analysed according to the stringent South African National Standards requirements‚” she said.

“To ensure the excellent quality of our water‚ the scientific services laboratory tests over 5‚700 samples of water each year. We draw water from sampling points throughout the water system and we test these samples on a weekly or fortnightly basis.

 “In terms of these test results‚ water remains safe to drink.”