30 Jan 2013

The Minister of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources, Mr Kitso Mokaila has appealed to Moshupa residents in the Southern District to pay their water bills.

Adressing a kgotla meeting in Moshupa on Tuesday, Mr Mokaila said Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) inherited a P70 million debt from the councils. He said the debt affected the corporation's  mandate of providing potable water to Batswana.

He said there was a fixed amount of money that individuals had to pay monthly even if they did not consume water from their stand standpipes.

Mr Mokaila said some bills were high because some farmers pilferred water from their stand-alone water pipes to water their livestock.

Minister Mokaila was responding to residents who raised concerns that their water bills were high despite the fact that they could go for several weeks without water in their village. They wondered how they should pay for water that they did not use. 

One of the residents, Ms Lorato Tumelo said their lives were at risk because they were forced to fetch water at night. She also appealed to WUC to reduce water connection fees because some residents were unable to connect water in their homes due to the amount charged.

In response, WUC water works engineer in Kanye, Mr Thuso Modise informed the residents that there were 17 boreholes supplying Moshupa and surrounding villages but four of them had since dried up.

He said they experienced low water pressure because some boreholes had low levels of water due to low rainfall last year. 

Mr Modise further said the corporation would find an alternative to provide water pending connection of Kanye to the north south carrier. ENDS