Regulation of water prices hits a snag due to lack of enforcement measures

By Awan Achiek

The management of the South Sudan Urban Water Corporation on Wednesday told lawmakers that it encountered difficulty in regulating water prices due to lack of enforcement measures.

Yar Paul Kuol, Managing Director of the South Sudan Urban Water Corporation admitted while appearing before MPs in the National Legislative Assembly that if the police had enforced the rule, they could have successfully implemented it.

This comes as several residents of Juba City Council are struggling to pay water bills due to the high charges.

“The implementation of the regulation we put in place has not been backed up, the drivers of the water tankers went on strike and the business people told them to just bring them water with whatever price,” said Paul.

She promised that measures will be put in place to deal with water tankers who may protest price reduction.

“We need that support, if we fix the prices and the water tanker association or the water tanker owners go on strike, there should be measures taken against them,” said Paul.

She disclosed that the Urban Water Corporation sells water to the water tanker drivers at 500 South Sudan Pounds per drum across the 10 filling stations in the city.

“We collect the money and use the money to pay for electricity, and as of today we bought electricity for one week with 8 million SSP and we pay 27,000 U.S dollars for chemicals every month,” said Paul.

Paul said they lack funds to install a 200,000 cubic meter treatment plant to supply indoor water to the 2 million population in Juba.

“There is no funding to build a treatment plant of 200,000 cubic meters because this is what we require according to study by the Japan International Cooperation Agency to provide water to 2 million people in their houses,” she said.

“We need a treatment plant of 200,000 cubic meters, what we have now is 18 cubic meter, we have 7 cubic meter and 200 cubic meter for the old system and JICA have 10,800 cubic meters and in Lologo, one was constructed by UNICEF with a capacity of 4 cubic meters,” Paul added.

Water tankers are now selling one drum of water between 6,000 to 7,000 SSP compared to the previous fee of 5,000 SSP.

Urban Water Corporation was established under the South Sudan Act of 2011 and is responsible for providing safe and clean drinking water to urban areas in the country.