22 Feb 2018

The Assistant Minister of Land Management, Water and Sanitation Services Mr Itumeleng Moipisi has admitted to Parliament that Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) is owed over P850 million.

Mr Moipisi, who was responding to a question from MP for Selebi Phikwe West,Mr Dithapelo Keorapetse said the debt was made up of domestic customers, government and the business community. 

He said domestic debt was the highest followed by government.

The assistant minister said however that he was not aware of water disconnections dubbed ‘Tswala Pompo’.

Nonetheless, he said he was aware of an intensified campaign to disconnect those who did not pay their water bills, explaining that the disconnections had started in earnest at the beginning of this month (February 2018) and would run till end of May.

He said WUC would review the number of disconnections at the end of each month and review the impact on the debt.

Mr Moipisi said the corporation normally started disconnections with customers owing over P5 000 and after that moved down to P2 000.

The requirement, he said, was that the customer pay their water bill within 30 days of the date of the bill, and that in most cases, people disconnected were those who had owed WUC for over three months.

The assistant minister explained that hospitals and primary schools would not be disconnected, stating that for government, they tried to minimise the impact on the public and strategic institutions.

He said WUC usually disconnected at ministries headquarters and other government offices, something that he said had proven to be an effective way of putting pressure on ministries to pay.

Mr Moipisi said they had regular engagements with ministries and in some cases joint teams had been put in place to address any issues on debts.

He said it was their hope that people would not resort to unhealthy sources because in the past none such had been experienced.

“It should be noted that disconnections are not new as it is something that we do every month. It is just that sometimes we do massive disconnections,” he said. Mr Moipisi said his ministry was always open to suggestions as to how it could recover funds owed to the corporation.

He explained that despite the disconnections, they used other measures to try and recover the debts and only used disconnections as a last resort.

The assistant minister said some measures used included repeated calls and follow-ups to those owing, letters of demand and sometimes the legal route.

He said it must be noted that the disconnections were meant to encourage customers who have contracts with WUC to pay so that the organisation could raise money to recover the cost of producing and treating water, especially since water tariffs were already subsidised.

Mr Keorapetse had requested the minister to confirm whether WUC was owed over P850 million, and if the corporation had indeed embarked on massive water disconnections dubbed ‘Tswala Pompo’.

If true, he also wanted the minister to state the commencement date, the minimum amount one had to be owing to attract a disconnection penalty and the exact number of disconnections thus far.

Mr Keorapetse had further wanted to know if government departments such as schools and hospitals would be affected.

He also wanted to understand if it was likely that the exercise would compel people to resort to unhealthy alternatives of unclean water sources and whether the minister was amenable to reviewing that exercise. Ends