Don't penalise the people by Allen Lockington

Submitted by AllenL on Fri, 12/03/2010 - 7:05am

Congratulations to the government and the Fiji Water Authority its (FWA) a fantastic move in the right direction. However!

This week the FWA disconnected many water meters of defaulting customers in Lautoka. You have denied our people a basic necessity. Water is an essential item; man cannot live without water. I believe FWA Suva has sent out a directive to disconnect and consumers have to pay up in full before re connections are done, this so cruel. The fault lay with the previous Water Supply Department in that their fees collections process did not function as it should have. Many people never received bills and meters are not read. Estimation is done, based on what – previous usage? That’s wrong. What if the family increased its usage, naturally the bill will be "higher"!!.

In the Financial Regulations Civil Servants are not allowed to collect one cent more or one cent less in government revenue. They have to collect the exact amount. But back to water. Many homes in Lautoka have sick people and babies and have one thousand dollars in arrears. They have been told to pay in full before the meter is reconnected. This is inhuman. Why penalize the consumer because of the laxity of the previous administration? Poor people cannot come up with a thousand dollars over night. Will they go out and steal to get the money? Do they go and ask family to pay? Do they go back to government for a grant? Water is a basic necessity you cannot deprive a person of essential services. There has to be a law against what has been done. When strikes occurred in the not too distant past essential services of the department never went on strike. The labour and OHS laws say that if water is not received in a work place the office has to close down for health reasons. Yet we cut water to the very homes of our citizens.

I’d like to make a comparison and that is to all City and Town Councils. Many rate payers are defaulters; did the City and Town Councils stop collecting rubbish and cutting grass?

Anyway this is a plea to the government please be human, use the Small Claims Tribunal and the court system to collect money. As a last resort send the head of the home to jail but don’t take water away from the mouths of our mothers and babies and children.