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dam-l Namibia Water Costs Rise/LS


>From The Namibian, May 7, 1998

Huge hike in water prices

by CHRISTOF MALETSKY

A MASSIVE increase in the price of bulk water supply was announced
Wednesday by the country's
water utility, NamWater. Communications Officer, Lazarus Jacobs, said the
price of bulk water
supply would increase by 20 per cent with retrospective effect from April
1, in the case of all users
except local authorities.

Tariff adjustments for local authorities come into retrospective effect from
May 1. At present water tariffs are subsidised by Government. However,
NamWater, which took
over bulk water supply recently, is obliged to operate on a full-cost
recovery basis.

Jacobs said this goal could be achieved in the next five years with an
average annual tariff increase of 20 per cent. Thereafter, he said, only
inflation-related adjustments would be added to the tariffs. NamWater's
present water tariff policy excludes the cross-subsidising of bulk water
supply costs.

Jacobs said as the cost of supplying water to consumers differed from place
to place, it would be necessary to adjust water tariffs at certain places
by more than 20 per cent a year to be able to achieve full-cost recovery
within five year. At other places the annual increase would be less.
According to the
NamWater official, measures were being implemented to keep the cost of
supplying water in bulk
as low as possible. "Due to the scarcity of water in our country, there is
a significant cost involved
in supplying and securing the availability of water at places where it is
needed.

The highly professional NamWater technical team is constantly engaged in
finding the best and most
cost-effective way of supplying water to their customers," he said.
NamWater was established by
the Namibia Water Corporation Act which was passed by Parliament last year.
Under this
legislation, the supply of water to rural communities cannot be
commercialised, although rural
communities will gradually have to take more responsibility for their water.

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      Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
           International Rivers Network
              1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
                  Tel. (510) 848 1155   Fax (510) 848 1008
                        http://www.irn.org
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