In what world do a couple of pensioners in a one bathroom cottage rack up an annual water bill of R77 000?
In Ugu’s world, that’s what!
We don’t run a fresh fish farm on our tiny patch of garden, nor have we built a dam. We don’t have a pool or even a storage tank. Our garden is indigenous and water-wise. Nor are there any leaks on the property.
So, where do the charges come from? From the meter reading, says Ugu. Their Customer ‘Care’ Department has in the past year required some pictures of the meter – duly supplied – but has never inspected/replaced the meter or the piping, or indeed, ever engaged with our problem. The readings are the readings and are relentlessly repeated, with the ‘outstanding balance’, month after month.
In truth, Ugu has perfected the dark art of charging its victims for air.
As we are towards the bottom of a hill, after each ubiquitous outage when flow is restored, the gush of water is preceded by a hurricane of compressed air, which spins our meter like a Formula One engine, reaching giddy levels of ‘consumption’.
Our saga started in November 2023 when we allegedly consumed 1403 KL. That’s 1 million 403 thousand litres in a single month! Even if our standard half-inch domestic pipes could physically have handled that volume, our little house would have been scoured from its foundations and ended up in the river.
It’s only got worse since then. We religiously pay them R600 every month – more than generous surely for our genuine consumption of about 8 KL per month.
But the monolithic beast of bureaucracy is on a roll and will not be stopped.
And we thought Eskom was a problem!
PETER VOS
Scottburgh
Note: The letter was sent to Ugu, and comment is awaited.
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