Unpaid govt water bill exceeds P100 million
Baboki Kayawe | Thursday July 7, 2016 16:32
The minister of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources, Kitso Mokaila, made this startling revelation when responding to a question from Boteti East Member of Parliament Sethomo Lelatisistswe.
The MP had queried why some government employees in his area were without water due to outstanding bills inherited from previous occupants.
In response, Mokaila stressed that WUC’s policy on disconnection for non-payment will stand.
Further, he said the property being supplied with water is a subject of the contract signed by the consumer and therefore attached to the contract; hence reconnection will only be done after the bill is settled without considering who occupied the property when the charges accrued.
“The WUC policy on disconnection for non-payment will be maintained because it assists in the debt recovery for defaulting properties,” Mokaila said.
He said if such measures are not fully implemented the problem of outstanding bills will recur and subsequently further cripple the operations of the WUC. He rhetorically asked; If government could owe such an amount without putting in place stringent ways of debt recovery how then would the corporation reclaim payment from individual customers?
“Disconnection of properties from water supply as informed by the Waterworks Act provides for the properties to be disconnected from water supply and only to be re-connected once the bill has been settled.
This applies to all properties be it domestic, business or government. It remains the landlord or property owner’s responsibility to ensure that their tenants service their water bills,” he said.
Lelatisitswe was disapproving what he called WUC’s denial of water to occupants of two houses in Boteti East constituency due to outstanding bills of the previous occupants.
In its 2014 financial report, WUC reported a P346.6 million net loss compared to P191.1 million net loss recorded in the previous year.
The P155.5 million increase was mainly attributable to the fact that no revenue grant was received from government unlike in the previous financial year where P200 million was granted, explains the latest annual report.
“The net loss resulted in the retained earnings being reduced to P448.1 million in 2013/14 compared to P796.2 million in the previous financial year,” the report added.