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’Govt major water bill defaulter’
2006-07-11 09:01:56
By Pastory Nguvu, Dodoma
Ministries and government institutions are the major defaulters of water bills, hampering the operations of water authorities in the country, Parliament was told yesterday.
Presenting the opinion of the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture and Land on the budget estimates for the Ministry of Water, Idd Azan (Kinondoni-CCM) advised the government to firmly address the problem.
Azan read the Parliamentary Committee opinion on behalf of the Committee Chairman Gideon Cheyo.
”Deputy Speaker, my committee advices are that appropriate measures must be taken to ensure that insensitive debtors especially ministries and government institutions do pay their bills,” he said.
However, he cautioned water authorities over the perennial problem of inaccurate billing on water services. This, he noted, caused unnecessary inconveniences to consumers.
”The Parliamentary Committee suggests that all water authorities should give priority to solving this problem,” he appealed.
The report underscored the need for water authorities to computerize their billing systems.
Azan at the same time proposed that the ministry should put in place a program, which would bring together water authorities in order to exchange experience in management and development of the water sector.
Azan also told the Parliament that most of wells that are drilled by private companies, do not meet the required standards.
He said poor development and delivery of water and sewerage services was the cause of intermittent outbreaks of waterborne disease like cholera in towns and cities.
To guarantee the safety of water from privately drilled wells, the legislator appealed to the government to empower the Water Drilling Agency to regulate the services.
He said in some areas, like Buguruni in Dar es Salaam, unscrupulous people have connected clean water system with the sewerage drainage,” he said.
The committee therefore advised the government to ensure that in future, all architectural plans for construction of new houses clearly indicate the sewerage drainage system.
Currently, he said, only 20 per cent of the population has been connected to the sewerage drainage system.
Earlier, the Minister for Water Stephen Wassira asked Parliament to approve a total of 170,302,291,900/- as his budget estimates for the year 2006/2007.
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