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DAM-L Lesotho water supply woes/LS (fwd)



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Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 09:38:50 -0800
To: irn-safrica@netvista.net
From: lori@irn.org (Lori Pottinger)
Subject: Lesotho water supply woes/LS
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Residents Lambast Water Minister

Mopheme/The Survivor (Maseru)
October 24, 2000

Thabang Matjama
Maseru

The Minister of Natural Resources Monyane Moleleki
could be under hot water following a reduced
water supply in the Maseru city and its surroundings
last week.

Some Maseru residents, who did not want their
identities disclosed, but are known to the newspaper,
blasted the minister accusing him for not being loyal
to the public. So far, Moleleki made a speech
in the National Assembly informing members of
parliament about the problems engulfing Water and
Sewerage Authority (WASA).

"We are not even told what the problem is, they just
shut the pipes," fumed one of the members of
the public. She told Mopheme they had to fetch water
from some mountain at Ha Tsosane. "At
least we are lucky to have a bakkie, otherwise we
would have to stay dirty until the authority changes
its decision. This is being hard on us, we pay the
bills but people just decide to close the pipes,"
she said.

In an outing that the newspaper had at the weekend, it
was discovered that people queue up at the
public taps which take water from the Tsosane water
spring while others use water from a nearby
Maqalika dam to flush the toilets, leaving houses with
a bad smell from unclean water.

Minister of Natural Resources said the reason behind
closure of pipes is because WASA is owed
M20 734,000 (US$2 849, 859) in total. In the total,
the government owes M5 797,000 while the
Ministry of Local Government owes M2 000. 000.

In his speech Moleleki said: "The public owes the
authority M9, 665, 000 and the businesses owe
M2, 309,000," adding that the domestic users who owed
M3,716, 000 started using stand pipes. "In
particular Maseru domestic users owed WASA M2,
534,000. He warned that the 92 of total 105
stand pipes and the other eight of Mafeteng were
closed. He said the Mafeteng was the only district
that owed the authority in the country.

Moleleki said WASA could avoid the problem if water
could be sold in Kiosks which are already in
use at Ha Leqele and Ha Abia and control to be
entrusted to the village committees as well as the
use of pre-paid metre cards.


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
      Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
        and Editor, World Rivers Review
           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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