Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Proposed Hike in Water Charges Has No Basis

Beebeejaun's intention of raising the price of water by 10-20% is not justified. See government has already been abusing us with prohibitive fuel prices for way too long. Add to this one Ramgoolam who promised in November 2007 to change his name if we kept paying punitive electricity prices. Not only prices didn't go down but they went up by a full 10% last year. And the PM has kept his name.

Enjoy the vision.

29 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have a plan - lets dissolve parliament, this govt is not showing any leadership!

And no Polo please!!!

Amit said...

I don't understand the need why to raise price of water....when its a natural resourses.. there are so many wastage per day due to water leak, y don't they try to repair it??? oh i think that they are not aware.

akagugo said...

Couldn't agree more with the title of this post.
Increasing the price of such a vital commodity can have repercussions on our competivity itself: the poorest people will, if they can no longer afford the increase, resort to collecting whatever water source for their consumption. If they can't afford paying for water, sterilisation may also be out of their reach, meaning waterborne and "water-wash" diseases may be their fate. And because no-one is an ermite, these diseases may easily spread to a significant part of the active workforce...
This is certainly not what we want, so why push for a price increase of such a critical service? To finance the CWA's inefficience? Or just to follow a fad of the moment?

If you want to force heavy users to pay attention to their consumption, a progressive pricing system should become really coercive and force the thirsty ones to think more than twice when asking for borehole licences and large-volume water meters.
And ensuring that there is not more than one water meter per building could be a nice start in cutting down on the "petits malins" (domestic users) who take up to 3 meters to quench their
thirst...
Same for CEB meters - by the way, that pre-paid thing they are introducing for poor people will force a signinficant part of them into the dark, for sure.

Sunghoon Kreepalloo said...

I think we are for the blunder we did in voting this government into business.nothing is under control.paye fort gagne fort

Anonymous said...

Voila resulta ministre dilo ki un 'sage'....according to Ramgoolam that is!

Anonymous said...

I've said it before on here, saying it again - Sactam Boolell said once on the radio that Ramgoolam needs the muslim vote to win elections, that was just after SAJ and Paul Berenger had finished their mandate.

So Ramgoolam has minister Beebeejaun there as a so-called muslim vote attractor, No 2 as he called it. The man sits there, doesn't know a thing about public utilities and there we are!

Anonymous said...

Lets move to the Seychelles - inflation is less than one percent, petrol cheaper than here...........according to the govt of the central bank there who gave an interview on radio

We need to learn a thing or two - where's the Prof from the US?

Anonymous said...

Vision du PM- reste populaire a tout prix et assumer ki la majorite morisien bete, pour preuve personne pas fine remind li pou li change so nom.

Anonymous said...

At this stage it's only an intended increase, I'm sure Ramgoolam's Singapore FREE? experts will show him the way how not to do this.

Only problem is Ramgoolam doesn't always listen to experts. Kind of an impossible staircase illusion there, or maybe it's the sheer stupidity of the Grand Master himself!

Anonymous said...

Some people are very enthusiastic about this increase - they are dying to pay more, they cant wait(see some reader comments on l'express for example). Do you know what their reasoning is?

They say people buy bottle water daily which is expensive so we should all be able to pay for that increase.

Where did they get this reasoning from? Navin Ramgoolam or the N02 man?

akagugo said...

@ Anonymous of April 5, 2011 9:28 AM:

Maybe they should be allowed to pay at, say, the rate of one litre of bottled Perrier...
Then, after making the maths for the cost of a typical shower (not bath) they should normally revise their value-judgement on the ordinary peoples' capacity to pay for a basic utility.

akagugo said...

What can you say about this act of cowardly sabotage to the potable water pipes?
A small challenge to Miniss Dilo: try to tell these people that they should pay more for normal (potable) water...
The awful consequence that is not told in this story is: how far has this fleeting pollution source permeated in the ground, into any feature found downstream (dilo suiv canal) of the point of discharge...?
If citizens are not educated about abstaining from throwing anything anywhere else than specific bins, why are our politicians still bellowing uselessly about that MID thingy?

Anonymous said...

Look, if we had a responsible and educated Environmental Minister he would have had a system of getting all mechanics and garages registered and would have required them to dispose of waste oil in the way it should be done.

But then what about the civil servants working at that ministry, are they stupid too?

akagugo said...

@ Anonymous of April 8, 2011 9:03 AM:

Bien dir!

Now get thinking about where do things which appear benign to the layperson actually end up:
- vehicle wastes
- batteries
- wheels
- oils/ lubricants (you've already broached on that one, thank you)
- spares
- the vehicle itself after its life
- hospital waste
- radioactive waste from labs
- biohazardous waste (syringes, scalpels, and other similar tools contaminated with biologically active matter)
- human tissue from operation theatres and labs
- laboratory waste (pick from any of these: schools, private medical ones, hospitals, testing agencies, factories / production lines etc)
- construction wastes (this includes electrical, mechanical, building and civil engineering contractors' wastes)
- factory waste (a whole heterogeneous range of things: paints, solvents, textile, rubber, tannery, dyeing, and all other very toxic niceties)
- electric appliances / electronic waste (TV's, fridges, PC's, microwave ovens, washing machines, and whatever electronic stuff you have at home)
- household items (chairs, beds, and any other furniture)

Where do all these things go...?

Does anyone at the Ministry of Environment actually think - let alone DO something - about these?

Don't tell us that the critical mass is not sizeable enough: Seychelles exports its PET bottles for recycling with a population of only 88,340... What could we do with a population of 1.2M with some real hard-balled commitment...?

Anonymous said...

Any decent MP of the opposition or the Majority could ask a question on this(last 2 comments on here) and see what that Minister is up to?

Some MPs there have no question at all - no ideas or no brain? Where is My Suren Dayal - is he just good at trying to get rid of Bheenick then? Or, as I can see, he's just too excited about attending all religious ceremonies here where I live.

Anonymous said...

The legislation can be found here.

http://www.gov.mu/portal/goc/menv/files/wasteoil_06.pdf

It looks ok but the question to ask is - how well is it enforced, this is what need to be asked. Obviously its easy to get hold of waste oil and dump it anywhere.

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Good initiative: Min of Environment is to place some 900 dedicated bins to collect used batteries.

akagugo said...

A humble suggestion to increase efficiency of this nice initiative: incentivise the following of the campaign by getting the most out of youthful energy: get a toy supplier (Ben10, Dora or Panini sticker, anything that is trendy for tweens) to give away free stuff for each battery collected. Now you'll need to be aware of and start counting your batteries at home...

akagugo said...

Enn lot ti contribution dans ça ti-débat la: wi, expert pé travail ek pé recommande boukou zaffer ki ena sense, mais nou politiciens surement deaf-and-blind...

akagugo said...

"...le tarif d’eau devrait être revu à la hausse. (...) c’est à cause de son faible coût que les Mauriciens ne considèrent pas l’importance d’économiser l’eau." reported in l'express.

« L’eau est trop bon marché à Maurice. Si bon marché que personne ne fait attention à son utilisation ! », reports Le Mauricien.

Someone persisting with this pathological perseverence in believing that all people of our country are endowed with his personal standard of living should not merit any sympathy. This is scientifically proven: people imbued of their own person infallibly loose compassion for the common people.

When the next call to polls is due, we can only hope he gets the same treatment as Rama got in April 2010...

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Bizin led singapurien pu enn zafer osi bazik ki tarif. Ena bez la!

Bann laprier la pann marse kuma dir.

lakeminou said...

Dans Mare-aux-Vacoas y pas de fuites. C'est dans la tete ministre qu'il faut checker buhhhnhummm.

akagugo said...

@ SJ
Let's hope Saddul starts shaking him up. No, I'm loosing hope now that he's fantasizing about desalination as a durable solution... Man, from where will we get the energy to power the plant with (I hope not from the cane industry - where will the water for irrigating the canes come from)? What to do with / where to dump the concentrated brine? What about the membranes - will your technicians be allowed to lrean from their mistake (which is actually plaguing the plants that are supposed to give potable water to people in Rodrigues, and causing them to receive brackish water instead of fresh water) to incorporate a decent replacement and maintenance component in their tender and execution budget ?
OK, sorry, I stop.

@ lakeminou
Bien dit. Il mérite de se faire "checker" parceque sa propension à faire ses 'ouvrir' les routes engorgées aussi aggressivement donne une idée de l'état de sa tête qui probablement commence à trouver l'inflation de son égo difficile à accomoder. Non? Parceque sa voiture est toujours aussi brillante comme un sou neuf... Ting!

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

@akagugo:

Kav ena enn manivel ladan?

Ki gran gran travay lial fer kumsa ki bizin uver sime ek otan viger? Mo pense li ti bizin esaye tele travay.

akagugo said...

@ SJ
Avant "télé-travail", li ti capav koumanss par esséy lév enn ti-pé pli bonérr...

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Minis kare kare anvi ogmant pri dilo parski li bon marse? Be eski li pu bes pri tu leres zafer ki mari ser?

akagugo said...

Or imposing a particularly constraining levy onto all high-volume water consumers (read: hotels and factories) that do not implement dual piping systems. It is known how they all lazily seek a permit for drilling into the acquifers (State-owned by law) and just pump without even thinking about efficient water management (are they even metered?) - just look at their loudmouth insinuating that CWA is stealing 'their' water.

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

So now our incompetent Minister of utilities wants to raise the price of water? So as to pay for a management contract we don't need? Why don't Ministers cut their total compensation by 75% instead? Or better they can put the finances of Mauritius on a more sustainable track by doubling the solidarity levy. Or impose a levy on every smart city to recover a big share of all the outrageous fiscal incentives given to these schemes.

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Tann sa enn kut. Kuma li kav dir ki delo ekstrememan cheap san ki li guete komye nu paye pu kuran ek bann lezot zafer?