Bloemfontein - Mangaung municipality will disconnect the water supply to residents who are behind in paying their accounts, it said on Tuesday.
“If not on the indigent register, we take it they can afford to pay and they will be disconnected until they have shown up and arrangements are made,” said Mangaung municipal spokesperson Qondile Khedama.
Democratic Alliance councillor Samuel Mpakathe expressed concern at the move.
“Failure to encourage residents to pay for services over the last 10 years has now resulted in a culture of non-payment, which compounds the dire financial situation of the Mangaung metro municipality,” he said.
Mpakathe said city management should remember that access to water was a constitutional right.
The municipality could not cut off water, but could put in water restricting meters or measures to restrict water usage.
He said the municipality should not have allowed arrears to move into the billions of rands before realising there was a problem.
Khedama said the municipality had, in the past, urged residents who thought they were indigent to register.
“This is an ongoing exercise.”
He said the municipality understood its obligation to provide access to free water and electricity, but could only honour this when residents registered as indigents.
Khedama said it was wrong to assume that there would be a “blanket disconnection” of water to residents. - Sapa