How do you charge for water with no meter, residents ask

Several residents who occupy RDP houses at Matswale Extension 14 in Musina claim to be billed for water while they do not even have water meters installed in their area. This, naturally, leaves them to question exactly how the municipality determines their water usage.

Most of these residents moved into their RDP houses in 2018 and, according to them, no water taps had been installed at their houses. For the first three months, they had no other choice but to walk the nearly two kilometres to the nearest communal municipal tap every day to fetch water for household use and bathing.

“We could not continue this way. We had to queue for a long time before we got a turn to fill our water containers, and it was too risky to get there too early in the morning to beat the queue,” said one of the residents, who prefers to remain anonymous. After the three months, the affected residents took it upon themselves to illegally connect taps to the main water pipes.

When Limpopo Mirror visited the area on Saturday, 15 January, a 50-year-old woman explained that she pays an average of R300 per month, although she does not know how the municipality comes to that amount as no water meter has been installed anywhere near her house. “Every month I have to go to the municipality and find out how much I owe them. The average every month is R300. But where do they get this amount from? This is not very fair,” she said, adding that if she does not pay this bill in her name every month, the arrears amount accumulates and then her electricity might get switched off.

Another resident claims that her bill runs up to an average of between R500 and R600 per month. “But the most surprising thing is that, even if we don’t use water for two weeks, the bill always stays the same.”

Matodzi Ralushai, Vhembe District Municipality’s spokesperson, urged the affected residents to raise the matter with their ward councillor or directly with the municipality. “Municipality clients with service [delivery] concerns [usually] raise such issues [directly] with the municipality. The responsible unit is also investigating the matter.”

Meanwhile, Peter Mokgobi, chairperson of the local community structure, Musina To the Front, said: “The water billing policy in Musina is corrupt. We as a community do not understand how they come up with a bill for each household when there are no water meters installed.” He further said that Vhembe District Municipality should establish an office in Musina to deal with water problems.

Date:21 January 2022

By: Bernard Chiguvare

Bernard Chiguvare is a Zimbabwean-born journalist. He writes mainly for the online publication, Groundup.

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