Water billing system based on apartheid era

Municipalities send out bills that don’t take specifics in consideration, writes

Larry Symington.

We fail to see why Minister Nomvula Mokonyane is targeting only 30 municipalities (mostly poor municipalities) for not paying their water accounts, when all municipalities countrywide, including metros, have the same problem.

Municipal officials cannot be blamed, its not their fault. They inherited a bad billing system that was never designed for our diverse economy and high unemployment rate.

South Africans were first introduced to the “user pay” system in 1947, and it only applied to those who were asked to pay (whites). All other races paid a flat rate or it was free as a political trade-off by the then apartheid government.

Furthermore, the policy only got passed through parliament on condition that the water charge would not be more than 1% of consumers’ disposable income.

Fast forward to 2017, and water charges is still below 1% for high-income earners. But it is 10%–15% of the average income-earner’s pay and up to 30% for grant recipients, never mind the poor and unemployed.

The problem is there is only one model – “billed for past consumption”, where the municipalities install a run-up meter that counts the usage and then relies on meter readers.

Consumers only know of their debt when already in debt.

We need the re-engineering of technologies and systems, to support the nature of local municipalities.