By The Great Imboywa Michael
We crawl till we can walk, we run till we are strong enough to jump. No country has ever taxed itself out of poverty, and the same applies to the counties. When the government overtaxes its citizens, it is just exposing itself to retaliation and resistance, worst of all, when it can’t even account for the previous tax it claimed was “it’s not enough”. Perhaps they forgot the saying that those who are dishonest with little cannot be honest with much.
The new water tariff by Eldowas is so unrealistic, starting from the tariff itself to the procedure of legalising it. The water tariff has been increased by 300%. Fixation of the water meter to personal boreholes! I understand there may be pressure to match the city’s status, but Rome was not built in a day.
They should have expanded their supply to areas they have abandoned before, areas still struggling to get clean water, to support their increment to maximize their earnings, rather than discriminating against the few who fall in the city circle. They can also up their game because, to date, their services are still unreliable and sometimes their water ain’t clean, making it unsafe for consumption.
Eldowas has been involved in many scandals, failing to account for millions of shillings allocated to them. Due to this, there have been a lot of irregularities citing the closure of one of their dam, the Chebara dam. Making people go days without water.
As the court has given them the green light to implement the tariff, residents are still fighting for themselves as they are calling for a reasonable price hike. The church leaders, a few activist leaders activists and residents are requesting that things be done right. The residents have petitioned to tribunal court; if that fails, they will hit the road demonstrating.
Eldowas should come out clear on their agenda, because of all the irregularities from their audits and the allocation they couldn’t account for, they must say who is the one who wants to get rich so quickly, because water is one of the most basic things we need, it cannot just be made expensive just because you want to match city status.
Tujiangalie!
