South Sudan’s Urban Water Corporation and Juba City Council on Thursday said they plan to reduce water prices in the capital Juba.
The majority of Juba residents depend on water supply from the River Nile and water refilling stations. The capital city depends on water supply from mostly privately owned water tankers.
Speaking after a meeting in Juba on Thursday, the Managing Director of the South Sudan Urban Water Corporation, Yar Paul Kuol, said they are putting measures in place to review the water prices in Juba.
“One of the important things to Urban Water Cooperation is reducing the prices of water because we are selling one drum at 100 SSP, and water tankers are selling it at 1,000 SSP. They must come to the middle, and they must stop cheating our citizens because we do the production, and we put in the chemicals, and we put everything in, and we only charge 100 Pounds per drum,” she said.
“The prices of water tankers are supposed to be under 500 SSP, and they must be under 500 SSP because the water refilling stations are within the city. They are in Gudele, they are in Lologo, they are in Kator, they are in Munuki, and they are everywhere, so they get the water just next door and charge highly. So this must stop,” she added.
Meanwhile, Thiik Thiik Mayardit, the Juba City Council Deputy Mayor for Infrastructure, said they are discussing with water tank owners to charge customers per distance and should not be more than 500 SSP.
“So we are not going to delay, and those people who are doing that will not be doing it again. You will be charged according to the distance and if you are passing the distance, you should charge according to the price,” he said.
Thiik further said those water tankers who will resist the new directives would not be allowed to operate. “We should be below 500 SSP and if anybody resists that he does not want to do it, let him keep his water tanker and the other one will work and we will do that,” he said.