Madam –
There is an informal settlement called Siyalala, my domestic worker owns one of those little matchbox houses.
Every Friday afternoon I give my domestic worker a lift home from work. As we were driving along I noticed people in the yards watering their vegetable gardens and their lawns.
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Now I know they were given those homes for nothing but what intrigued me the most was the way in which they were using the water in abundance. Casually I asked her if they had to pay for water and as you can guess her reply was no.
Now my question is this, what is the Municipality going to do about the water crisis? Ration the people who pay dearly for water or impose more levies on the already overburdened tax-payer or address the wastage in informal settlements.
Surely water meters should be installed at those houses and once they’ve used the water allocated to them for free, they should be made to pay for whatever they use in excess after that.
Peggy Botha
Response from Dr Dumisani Thabethe, Head of Communications:
1. Yes, the houses have been fitted with meters.
2. The recipients of the RDP houses are by definition – indigent people. Part of the registration process of the house owners, the electricity meters, water meters etc. is that the people once again have to prove their financial status to Budget and Treasury.
3. The project at Siyahlala is ongoing due to financial challenges. Once the project is completely handed over, Operations and Water conservation and Demand Management staff will take over and read meters. Unfortunately, the statistics for Siyahlala water consumption would have been able to be calculated from the bulk meters, however this possibility was ruined due to the presence of a major pipe burst that ran undetected for a few weeks – it was located on the bulk line in a desolate area just below Siyahlala near Hilldrop.
The bulk meter readings were heavily skewed due to this extended period where massive volumes of water were being lost.
Now that the burst pipe has been addressed, Operations staff will take meter readings monthly and will report on the consumption, however, this will take a month to seven weeks to report on the consumption. I trust that the above adequately addresses the questions posed.
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