I am often amazed at how we – South African citizens – tolerate the abuse we suffer at the hands of our government. This is the same government, remember, that promised us heaven and earth before it came to power.
Recently, I moved into a new home in Soshanguve, north of Pretoria, an area that falls under the Tshwane Metro Municipality. Last month my power was cut because I didn’t pay my water and services on time. Fair enough, but I have serious problems with how the municipality calculated how much I owed it.
Firstly, when I queried the water bill, the clerk told me that nobody had read the meter at my house and asked me to do so. After this, I was expected to bring the correct reading to the municipal offices so that my bill could be adjusted. What nonsense! It is not my job to read meters for the municipality. I pay them to do that for me.
To make matters worse, I am expected to carry out this exercise as a matter of course. If I fail to so do, the municipality continues charging an estimate. Secondly, when I compared the two figures, I found that the estimate was more than 150% higher than the actual reading. 150%!
Heaven knows what it bases these estimates on. There is no way that I could have used up to R500 worth of water on my own. I have no garden, no lawn – nothing!
What do my woes have to do with agricultural matters? Well, across the road from my home, there are agricultural plots, many of which are owned by emerging farmers. If these smallholders are suffering the same treatment from the municipality that I experienced, then I feel sorry for them.
It is hard enough coping with the challenges faced by farmers everywhere. How much more difficult is it when you have to battle abuse like this?
Government has been encouraging people to start food gardens in their backyards. If we are regularly overcharged for water – based on estimates – how can we possibly do this? People will try to minimise water use and food gardens will become a luxury. In fact, it will be far cheaper to buy vegetables than grow them at home. If I pay R500 a month for water just to bath, drink and cook, how much am I going to pay to water a garden every day?
I have friends who live in an RDP house in Soshanguve extension. This is a poor community, yet their water bills are also extremely high. We are told that poorer households in this country spend over 60% of their income on food. What happens when they are overcharged for water as well? It is a tragedy that families have to suffer because some government officials are too lazy to do their jobs.
