squeezed dry

Amatola District Municipality has upped the tariffs for metered water customers by between 140 and 184 %. This is about 60% more than consumers pay in Cape Town or Johannesburg. What they don't tell anyone is that non revenue water (unmetered connections, communal standpipes and leaking infrastructure) accounts for between 65 and 85% of all the water they supply. To make matters worse, in the 2011/2012 annual report they admitted to a R 428 million uncollected debt, of which R 257 million was written off as bad debt. The actual revenue collection rate up to June last year was 37%. No wonder they want to squeeze the last drop from the paying consumers!