Finance minister Malusi Gigaba is giving Cape Town the silent treatment on its water crisis‚ says mayor Patricia de Lille.

De Lille told a council meeting on Thursday that Gigaba had not replied to a request she sent two months ago for permission to table an adjustment budget in order to fund alternative water sources.

The city council wants to introduce desalination‚ water reuse and groundwater abstraction as alternative sources of drinking water amid the worst drought on record.

We've been a victim of own goals: Gigaba 

To fund the projects‚ it says it needs to adjust its budget but cannot do so without the go-ahead from Gigaba‚ who did not refer to the drought in his medium-term budget policy statement on Wednesday.

“My request has not been responded to by the minister except for officials in Treasury asking for clarity‚ which we gave‚ and in the past two months there have been numerous follow-ups to the minister’s office and an appeal to the Presidency‚” said De Lille.

If Gigaba did not respond‚ the city would have no choice but to hold an urgent adjustment budget meeting next week. “I am appealing to the minister directly to please respond to my correspondence to allow us to have a special adjustment budget‚” said De Lille.

“We have the money for the augmentation schemes in the system but the biggest stumbling block in our plans is getting approval from minister Gigaba.”

Half of Cape Town businesses say the drought has become a threat to their survival‚ according to a survey by the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry. It also found that the water crisis had caused 23% of firms to delay or halt new investments.

“It is clear that we have a major crisis on our hands and it is time to slash the red tape and take emergency measures‚” chamber president Janine Myburgh said on Thursday. “Normal bureaucratic procedures were not designed to deal with emergencies.”

The survey also asked businesses how they were dealing with the water crisis. Nearly 41% said they had halved their water consumption and 26% said they had reduced consumption by 25%.

Nearly half said they had developed long-term plans to make their businesses less dependent on municipal water.

In response to the question: “Do you think the city council has done enough to prepare for the water shortage”‚ 92.8 % said no.

Myburgh said businesses particularly hard hit by the crisis were hotels‚ guest houses‚ catering firms‚ restaurants and others who provided services for the tourist industry. Landscaping and gardening services were already shedding jobs.

A variety of manufacturing operations were affected as water was an essential item in production and cleaning. “Without water‚ we close down‚” said one respondent.