Water price hike stings

 Reggae great Bob Marley sang that “In the abundance of water, the fool is thirsty.” Amid skyrocketing cost of living, Malawians escaping the ballooning water bills are making desperate cutbacks likely to trigger deadly disease outbreaks, including cholera.

State-owned utilities have increased water tariffs by an average of 50 percent on the back of the country’s deadliest cholera wave, which claimed more than 1 760 lives from about 60 000 patients in 16 months in the last year.

The tariffs were conceived to save the utilities from collapsing under surging production costs, but household austerities are driving low-income earners to a risky low.

Mzuzu resident Maria Munthali, 40, says she stopped using tap water for  washing, bathing and flushing toilets when Northern Region Water Board (NRWB) announced a 65 percent hike.

“I just had to limit domestic water use to drinking and cooking as the monthly bill doubled to K20 000. My postpaid meter has an outstanding bill of more than K50 000,” she said in an interview at her home in Luwinga Township.

Munthali has sealed a kitchen tap and banned her grandchildren from flushing the indoor toilet.

 “Now I draw water from a shallow well for the water closet, which is tiresome,” she states.

Within her vicinity, Nelifa Nkhoma, excluded from the NRWB pipeline, has since stopped buying potable water from her neighbours.

“We cannot afford the new tariffs. We used to pay K3 000 a month, but the neighbours now demand no less than K5 000,” she says.

The vegetable vendor struggles to feed her family.

“My husband and I agreed to stop buying tap water to save our 

 meagre income. We entirely rely on shallow wells, which expose us to deadly waterbourne diseases,” she explained.

More than half of outpatients in the country’s healthcare facilities seek treatment for diseases that can be prevented by safe water, sanitation and hygiene, according to the Ministry of Health.

Wisdom Mwandira, from Sonda in the swampy ever-green city, said he buys water from a communal kiosk supplied by NRWB. He said the cholera-prone nation is sitting on a time bomb.

“Water is life, so we are living dangerously as a 20-litre bucketful previously sold at K25 now costs K75. Every day, I have to squeeze myself harder to fill three buckets,” he explained.

Blantyre Water Board (BWB) has raised the price of water by 40 percent in a staggered tariff surge expected to hit 90 percent by October.

Margret White, from Bangwe Township in Blantyre City, draws muddy water from a shallow well.

Every day, the mother of five has to fill six 20-litre buckets for her family of seven.

But she uses nearly half the daily requirement to reduce the draining walks to ‘Namichimba’ stream, nick-named after human waste as open defaecation remains common in the waterway that splits the clustered township.

She said: “Since water from a communal kiosk is costly, we just buy 40 litres for drinking and washing kitchen utensils. For other chores, I fetch water from Namichimba, which is dirty and unsafe.”

White’s family lives hand-to-mouth, thanks to piecework averaging K1 000 a day. A bucketful previously worth K50 has more than doubled to K120.

Tereza Damiyano, who was spotted washing her child’s clothes in the stream reduced to a dumpsite, said the rising water price eats into her family’s low income of about K2 000 a day.

She said: “My child, husband and I can only afford 40 litres a day. Since we cannot afford piped water for all chores, we bath and wash in the filthy Namichimba stream.”

There are similar cries from Central Region Water Board (CRWB), which has hiked the tariffs by 50 percent.

CRWB requires communal kiosks to sell three cubic litres between K973 and K2 920, up from K628 to K1 884.

But Monica Banda, a mother of two in Lilongwe’s populous township of Likuni, is struggling to keep her extended family of 15 supplied.

“We have a large family, so we cannot afford piped water for all tasks. We just use it for cooking and drinking,” she said on the way to a river where she draws water for other uses.

At her nearest kiosk, a bucketful has jumped from K30 to K50. On lean days, women

  between long walks to the polluted river or fierce scrambles at the closest hand pump. and girls face the hard choice

“Unsafe water fuels waterborne diseases, but we have no choice. Unfortunately, many people can neither afford chemicals for treating unsafe water nor to boil it before use,” Banda says.

Jennifer Yosulf, from a family of six in the neighbourhood, is equally “saving water to ease the financial pinch”

In Zomba, Gladys Saidi of Chinamwali Township said the water users at the Mderemani Kiosk were unaware of the tariff shocker until they got a startling bill from Southern Region Water Board (Board).

The kiosk leader said talks are underway to increase the monthly fee from K1 300.

Edith Gilita said some households now use water sparingly, supplementing their daily need with scoops from contaminated rivers in the densely populated cholera hotspot

“The exorbitant bills eat into our low incomes, so we take to Chikupira River knowing we are putting our lives in danger,” he says.

The unaffordable tariffs could be a pothole in the national race to provide safe water, sanitation and hygiene for all by 2030 in line with the global Sustainable Development Goal Six.

Additional reporting by FAITH KAUNDE and HOLYCE KHOLOWA, Correspondents