Late last year, a young police officer drowned in a river in Gwanda while taking a bath after the town had gone for over ten days without piped water due to some bureaucratic bottlenecks in the supply of water a right accorded to every living being in the world. I dedicate this writing to him.
I reference to an article in The Sunday News of January 18 written by my good friend and brother Doctor Qhubani Moyo where he goes to a great length justifying the government proposed and imposed idea of introducing prepaid water meters in the country’s urban areas.
The starting point of deliberations on the issue of prepaid water meters must be to agree that the issue of water provision should not be politicised nor approached from any partisan lines. If we are to come up with a realistic solution to the water problems bedevilling the country we must allow civic sanity to prevail over all our other affiliations and preferences.
Firstly as correctly highlighted by Dr Moyo in his article, the constitution of the Republic Of Zimbabwe guarantees under section 77 that every person in Zimbabwe has a right to safe, clean and potable water, not portable as in the misprint (I presume) on his article. We must understand that this matter did not find itself in the Zimbabwean Constitution due to some ulterior motives but as a United Nations General Assembly resolution in 2010.
What we need to understand before misinterpreting this declaration is that the reason why water was declared as a universal human right is because it can not be substituted. It is as unsubstitutable as life and was in effect proven that water is life itself.
Contrary to what Dr Moyo infers to that the constitution of Zimbabwe provides for the limitation of the right to access water in section 86, it is imperative that when section 86 is referenced it must be done so in its full context not partially and with greatest caution. Section 86 (2) e and f completely rule out the possibility of limiting the right to access water.
How prepaid water meters infringe on the right to access safe, clean and potable water is an obvious fact. The prepaid water meter means that when a consumer has no money then the person has no water which ultimately says the person has no life, that’s how simple it is. When the United Nations declared access to water as a human right it meant that water provision is no longer a service provision aspect but accordance of a human right.
That being the case it logically means that water can no longer be a commodity that can be commercialised. Reading the arguments presented by Doctor Moyo and the Zimbabwean Minister of Water and that of the Minister of Local Government that prepaid water meters are needed to help councils generate revenue clearly spells an agenda of using human life as a fund raising method and that is morally wrong.
What the prepaid water meters simply infer is that only the elite should have access to clean, safe and potable water. The rich will find it easy to buy as much water as they need to fill their swimming pools and wash cars while the poor will fail to get enough water for basic dignified sanitation.
We must never ignore the fact that an average Zimbabwean is currently surviving way below the poverty datum line and so there is no social guarantee that the average person will always have money available to purchase water as and when the need for it arises. The reverse is applicable if the conventional metering is to be maintained that there is a near guarantee that after using the water and there is need to pay for the water at a later stage every effort can be made to settle the water bill whether piecemeal or at a go.
The prepaid water meters issue is not a Zimbabwean matter only, several other countries some of economies bigger and better than Zimbabwe have tried them and given up on them. Dr Moyo’s suggestion that we ignore the challenges that were faced by these other countries that tried and failed saying that Zimbabwe will do better is tantamount to saying Zimbabwe with its history of failed policies and programmes has woken up as a giant in Africa and the world.
South Africa not far from us here failed on both the legality and the social acceptance aspect of the prepaid water meter project and we are forced to believe that we can do it better. Our authorities at the moment are failing to even provide the very water in its right quality right quantity and at the right time. Logic says we should have the product we want to sale first before accepting the payment. Its not a chicken and egg matter, the water must be there first and readily available before we can dream of preselling it.
The UN declaration on water solely put the responsibility of water provision in the hands of government. What this means is that governments are slowly being driven in the direction to say water should be provided to citizens of the world for free. Other caring and committed governments are already on that path and water is provided at no cost to consumers. The understanding being that access to water is now according a right which is free and not a service which one has to pay for. This is the direction which if our government is serious about good governance should be taking instead of further burdening its already heavily burdened citizens.
In the current set up the country already finds itself with some of the highest tariffs in water as a result of a dual (or more) water administration system where water is paid to ZINWA and also to local authorities. It is no secret that once the meters are rolled out the cost of acquiring the gadgets will be moved over to the citizens as final consumers. The maintenance costs of the gadgets will equally be put in the hands of the citizen and it is known fact that all these costs will come at a premium.
A closer look to the effect will say to those that are lobbying for the meters as a way to a new dispensation we are actually opposing where the other people are going. The new dispensation is acknowledging that water is now a right that must be provided at no cost to citizens. Councils or whatever water authority is in place must have alternative funding for water provision other than direct taxing for the water.
Included in Dr Moyo’s arguments for the prepaid is the suggestion that local authorities will provide users with a certain amount of free water allocation. Noble as it may sound, the South African scenario failed to decide precisely how much is enough water for an individual per day. The South African High Court initially put it at 50 litres per person per day which the Supreme Court of Appeal reviewed to 42 litres per day per person. The next challenge raised by residents was determining how many people should be under each meter point. Complicated!
Anyway, eventually the South African courts ruled that the imposition of prepaid water meters was unconstitutionally and the City of Johannesburg was given two years to reverse their plans. Currently their way forward has been to make the use of prepaid meters optional rather than compulsory.
Suppose in our Zimbabwean case we manage to get around those matters that have complicated the matter in other countries, it is no secret that our government is right now very broke and can not even afford to pay attention to its own people who elected them. How in the world is the government going to be able to finance this project? As Dr Moyo says in his writing, local authorities in the country are faced with serious financial problems mainly caused by government’s failure to fund them how then are we expecting this allocation of free water to be funded? The matter needs to be comprehensively attended to before declarations are imposed into the system.
There is this very unfortunate allegation that people are resisting prepaid water meters because people don’t want to pay and would so want to stick to the conventional metering system. This is a very unfortunate deliberate confusing of the people’s willingness to pay against their ability to pay. The general economic situation in the country is tough but regardless to that, Zimbabweans are making all efforts to continue sustaining their local authorities. We know for a fact that the biggest debtor to most councils is the government itself. After all government has to bare the blame for creating a culture of being reluctant to pay council bills following the June 2013 cancellation of all bills owed to local authorities. Who will pay their bills when they know there is a very high chance that in another five years the outstanding amounts will be written off.
Finally, as I indicated in the beginning the issues around water must not be approached on a political or affiliation basis. The way government through the Ministers of Water and Local Government is pushing and directing on the prepaid meters it is now apparent that this is a way by which government wants local authorities to recover the monies that government wrote off in their campaigns before the 2013 elections. It is an extremely wrong attitude expressed by government if the Ministers clearly tell councils that they must go out and raise money by oppressing even the poor of the poorest in the country by squeezing money out of the people through water.
It’s so shocking when a Minister says that councils must realise that everyone needs water and so that’s where the money is. This is oppression to the highest level and as concerned citizens we have every right to resist such an attitude.
Dr Moyo accuses civic organisations of going out to mobilise people to stand up against these meters, I don’t see anything wrong with that kind of mobilisation. I applaud all civic organisations that are taking part in this drive against prepaid water meters country wide. That is the true work of the civic society getting people conscience of their rights and helping them fight for the rights due to them.
An allegation is thrown that one Honourable Gorden Moyo is the hand behind civic groups that are up against the prepaid meters. One would be left doubting the genuineness of the allegation as the war against prepaid water meters is not only heard in Bulawayo where most if not all of the civic organisation groups which Hon Moyo helped establish are centred. The resistance is heard from all the urban areas of Zimbabwe and even across the borders by citizens of other countries. This mass resistance should be a clear message to government that the call is not only from a few people but its a holistic resistance from the people of Zimbabwe. If indeed Hon Moyo has been this influential on the matter then he is the man and he knows how to stand for and with the people.
The solution to the problem is not just buying into the matter because the government of a political party one subscribes to has said it then one has to sing it against their own conscience for recognition. What is needed is a collective solution to the matter where government and the people jointly work on solving the country’s water woes. Government needs to be reminded that we are now under a new political dispensation where we do not only choose who to govern us but also how we want to be governed. Forcing matters down on people is a thing of the past and as citizens its our constitutional right to resist such efforts until good democratic governance is the order of the day.
People have said ‘No” the prepaid water meters and that’s the message very loud and clear. The government has been presented with a platform to show its commitment to the new dispensation and listen to what the people have said. The next best option would be to provide the meters and make them optional to those who need them.
Bekezela Maduma Fuzwayo is an independent social and political analyst and also spokesperson for the Gwanda Residents Association and writes this in his personal capacity. He is contactable on [email protected]