Water Price Hikes About Turn

Less than one month ago, our esteemed Minister in the department of water affairs told us that water price hikes were not on the cards: “I want to allay the fears of South Africans that there is not in the near future a possibility of a hike. It’s not in the pipeline,” she told a media briefing at Parliament.

Seems pretty clear right ? Think again…

Last week, Mayco member for finance in the City of Cape Town, Ian Neilson said that a tariff increase for Cape Town water, projected to be 8 percent above inflation, would need to be phased in in subsequent years (after 2010).

So you might say Ian disagrees with Buyelwa. If you were hoping she was right and he was wrong and that we were not going to be burdened with yet another utilities price increase… Think again, again !!! Check the highlighted bit for the nice little ‘fine print’ excuse.

South Africa’s water boards are proposing increases of between 6,2% and 43% to the cost of the potable bulk water they supply to the country’s municipalities. Such tariff increases, if accepted, are likely to increase the cost of drinking water supplied by municipalities to end users.

The proposals, details of which are contained in a document tabled at a meeting of Parliament’s water affairs portfolio committee on Tuesday, appear to fly in the face of an announcement made by Water Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica last month.

“I want to allay the fears of South Africans that there is not in the near future a possibility of a [tariff] hike. It’s not in the pipeline,” she told a media briefing at Parliament on April 13. Questioned about this later on Tuesday, the department’s media liaison director, Linda Page, said that there was no contradiction.

“You will remember that the minister was responding to a question on whether there are likely to be tariff increases linked to funding for infrastructure and thus potential increases in the price of raw water. “The increases that the water boards are proposing… are the normal annual increases linked to the CPIX because they operate on a cost recovery basis,”

Am I the only one thinking… “Ja, right”

These range from 6,2% for Umgeni Water (from R3,24 a kilolitre to R3,47), to 43% in the case of Namakwa (from R6,37 to R9,11).

Among the water boards supplying the larger metropolitan areas, Rand Water is calling for a 14,1% increase (from R3,48 a kilolitre to R3,97) and Amatola for between an eight and 8,8 percent increase. Bushbuckridge Water is proposing a 12,46% increase.

Any way you look at it, it the near future our water prices are going to do the same thing our electricity prices have done (are still doing). Moral of the story ? Get used to the idea of water outages, or get yourself a rainwater harvesting solution.