BY SILISIWE MABALEKA THE Matabeleland Institute for Human Rights (MIHR) has criticised the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) for sending estimated water bills to ratepayers despite the city being subjected to 72-hour water-rationing schedules.
MIHR co-ordinator Khumbulani Maphosa made the remarks on Tuesday during commemorations of the 2022 World Water Week.
Maphosa said residents could not be expected to pay full water bills when they rarely got the precious liquid, and when some communities were going for as many as 15 days without water.
“Currently the city is officially on a 72-hour per week water-rationing schedule, which means that residents clock three days without water, translating to 12 days per month without water. That in turn calculates to a minimum of 40% of the month without tap water. However, the residents’ bills are still estimated at 100% and some residents have even complained that the charges keep increasing. This is grossly unfair on ratepayers,” Maphosa said.
“It is in that light that we urge BCC to do away with the estimated bills and revert to actual billing in order to give fair and real charges to the residents. Should council not be able to do actual billing, we urge it to be fair to the residents and deduct 20% to 30% from the estimated bills.”
Since Tuesday, Bulawayo residents have been signing a petition, demanding justice and accountability.
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“We have been seeing rising cases of diarrhoea since January 2022, with the months of May and June recording 158 and 156 cases, respectively. Recently, there was a diarrhoea outbreak in Pumula. As MIHR, we have received numerous cases of residents complaining of stomach pains after drinking tap water,” he said.
Given the impurity of the water, BCC has been encouraging people to boil it before drinking after residents raised quality concerns.
“As MlHR, we encourage residents to also use other purification methods and to educate each other about water treatment options. Council needs to include other alternatives in its messaging in order to give residents full information with a variety of options. Business also needs to refrain from profiteering. We ask them not to unnecessarily increase the price of water purification products so as to save people’s lives,” Maphosa added.
This year’s World Water Week commemorations emphasised issues of financial economy of water and that water is a right for people, nature and for the climate.
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