These 'climate gating' actions, such as drilling boreholes, secured water access for high-income households and companies, but excluded a large proportion of Cape Town's population who could not afford such private technologies . These responses were unanticipated by the city administration and compounded fiscal challenges faced by the municipality which could no longer use revenues from high-consumption households to cross-subsidise water for low-income households . This shift threatened to undermine the sustainability of the municipal fiscus and general water access . In order to recover losses, municipal water tariffs for consumers were raised by 26% in 2018 . In addition to a decline in tourism, median estimations of the overall economic impact of the drought indicate loss of 27.6 billion South African Rand  translating into 64,810 job losses in the Western Cape, with Cape Town accounting for approximately half of those job losses . This had a disproportionate impact on unskilled and semi-skilled workers, particularly for those from low- and middle-income households . The drought also exacerbated the potential for sanitation health risks of the urban poor where tens of thousands of people lack access to safely managed sanitation facilities .
IPCC
Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
IPCC Report