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Water crisis deepen in Letombo Park
Harare Residents
Trust (HRT)
March 12, 2010
Letombo
Park - Residents here are concerned about the manner in
which the City of Harare is attempting to coerce them to clear an
unjustifiably high water bill, before they can consider their demands
for direct individual billing by the municipality.
According to
Mrs Gertrude Mataranyika, the Chairperson of the Letombo Residents
Association, the area has faced a serious water crisis since 2008,
with a situation where residents have gone for three years without
regular water supplies. They only received water sometime in August
2009, when water was supplied during weekends- from Saturday through
to Monday. Then water came back sometime in February this year for
one week. Now they do not have water, yet are still expected to
pay.
"The major
problem we face is that there is only one billing meter servicing
all the 160 households here," Mataranyika said. "The
City of Harare is charging us a fixed monthly water charge of US$10
per household, which is unjustified. There is very little water
reaching us for the last three years and yet they want us to pay
these astronomical charges. Why should we pay?"
She said this
during a meeting between the Letombo Residents' Association
and the Harare Residents' Trust in Letombo Park on Tuesday
evening.
Their latest
water bill for the Letombo Park Owners Association water account
Z0300313580018 indicates that they owe the City of Harare US$19,
310, 00 based on estimate reading. The billing date indicated is
17 January and the due date is 20 January 2010. They have to share
this cost implying that each resident owes the City of Harare US$120,
7. Residents are refusing to pay for undelivered water.
As a direct
response to the non-availability of water in the Letombo, residents
have sunk wells for their water.
Mataranyika said they want each household to have an individual
meter, directly from the City of Harare so that people are charged
for their individual water consumption, rather than to be collectively
charged. She said the local authority has demanded that for that
to be done, the Letombo residents' have to first clear their
water debt.
What happens
in Letombo is that the City of Harare supplies bulk water up to
the single meter. From there, residents have linking water infrastructure
which and individual meters. Every month, the Letombo Residents'
Association despatches a meter reader who goes around the area,
and compiles a list indicating consumption for each household, expecting
each household to make payment to the Association for onward transmission
to the City of Harare as a single account. However, when a bill
comes from the Greendale District Office, the residents' resist
making payments for water not supplied and which is unjustifiably
high.
If the City,
supposedly decides to disconnect them, even those who have paid
would be affected, since there is only one official meter for the
City of Harare.
The HRT urges
the City of Harare to revise its huge bill and do the honourable
thing of directly charging individual residents than the collective.
No resident should be charged for water not consumed, and the HRT
will engage the authorities on this matter so that a lasting solution
is found.
For details
and comments please contact the Harare Residents' Trust (HRT)
on +263 912 869 294, +263 733 296 806 or email us on hretrust@yahoo.com/
hretrust79@gmail.com
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