Cape Town - The ANC in the Western Cape on Thursday said it would request President Jacob Zuma to institute a Commission of Inquiry to establish whether the Western Cape government and the City of Cape Town "deliberately ignored the warnings of the diminishing water resources".

"The DA must accept the blame for dumping the city in this crisis that will impact all its residents and especially the poor, who will find it difficult to get to the collection points when Day Zero arrives,” ANC Western Cape secretary Faiez Jacobs said in a statement.

"This civil war in the DA is having negative implications for citizens; engaging in racialised factionalism, surveillance on each other, corrupt practices, et cetera, took [their] eye off governance resulting in service delivery failure and this water crisis."

The party was against "draconian water measures", he said.

Mayor Patricia De Lille on Thursday said, if Capetonians failed to save water, the City would most likely reach Day Zero in April.

Read: Drought levy likely to be dropped after massive outcry – De Lille

The City would be moving to level 6B water restrictions from February 1, with a new target of 50 litres of water per person per day. 

The City’s previous target was 87 litres per person per day, which it said only 39% of residents had met. 

The new daily collective consumption target was now 450 million litres per day and this would be in place for 150 days after which a reassessment would take place.

De Lille, who is at the centre of a series of corruption allegations, at a press briefing on the water crisis on Thursday avoided a question on whether she would voluntarily hand over management of the City’s drought crisis to Deputy Mayor Ian Neilson and mayoral committee member for water Xanthea Limberg, as requested by the Democratic Alliance's federal executive on Sunday. 

De Lille said earlier this week she would be "carrying on with all my work as usual".

Jacobs said the ANC would not be "drawn into a DA civil war".

"They cannot charge, try and prosecute De Lille in the DA Fedex but expect council to punish and execute her. The City of Cape Town council and it's ANC councillors will not do [the] DA’s dirty work.

"The City of Cape Town council must use its own expertise, structures and mandate to investigate allegations in the interest of citizens."