Townships despair over water meters

By David Loyn
BBC Developing World Correspondent in Johannesburg

How do you get people to pay for something which they have seen up to now as a right? That's the problem facing the company that supplies water to the South African city of Johannesburg and the giant townships nearby.

Water meters enable the company to charge

With new investment from foreign companies, Johannesburg Water needs to make a commercial return. But during the apartheid years, a campaign not to pay for essential utilities became part of political protest.

It has been hard for the ANC government to change that: After all, during Apartheid, non-payment for water was an effective political process.

Now the ANC has been in power for 10 years, and it is finding itself under attack by a strong new campaign against water charges among its natural bedrock support - in the townships.

Health hazard

For most people, the arrival of the meters means that they have to live a different lifestyle.

Thojo Colwet used to grow enough fruit and vegetables in his garden to sell at the side of the road. Now most of his garden is just dust, and he can afford to plant only a tiny strip which he irrigates with waste water from washing.

Many in the townships run out of water every month

Others have been hit even harder. If the meters are not recharged then the water runs out, and that can have serious health implications.

Hlezibki Mfusi says that she has been without water for about a week each month since her meter was installed. Ms Mfusi is HIV positive, like three other people in her house, and losing the water makes her much more prone to infection.

Internationally agreed minimums

Briggs Mokolo, the organiser of a 'water crisis committee' in Orange Farm, describes Johannesburg Water's initiative as a new kind of apartheid and says the people of the townships did not vote for the ANC for them to introduce water charges

The accusation is denied by Johannesburg Water's Anthony Still who insists that although water may be a human right, free water in unlimited quantities is not.

When the meters are installed, the water company repairs leaks for free, even replacing toilet cisterns where necessary, and needs to make a return.

Making a living from growing vegetables has become harder

Mr Still says that the new water meters let people get 6000 litres a month free before any charges come in, which conforms with internationally agreed minimums for health.

After that, householders can recharge the meter with an electronic key which should bring their charges down below the flat rate charged previously if they use an average amount of water.

But since hardly anyone was paying the flat rate in the first place, protests against the meters are growing.

Sabotage

Protests have been organised by the Anti-Privatisation Forum which may run candidates against the ANC in future elections. The forum says that since unemployment is very high in the townships, few people have the ability to pay anything for water.

Many South Africans see unlimited free water as a human right

It is backed by international organisation, including the World Development Movement in the UK, which says that very few developed countries meter water for private houses.

The forum has already successfully bypassed electricity meters in the townships, and although it knows it is illegal they are now campaigning to sabotage the water meters too.

The forum says that the ANC has been blocking them violently.