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Harare City Council has for a generation muddled along with a colonial pricing system for water despite the fact that the models it was based on are no longer appropriate or viable. The council has now gone to the core of the system and is proposing to abolish the fixed minimum charges and start the process of removing cross-subsidisation.

The minimum water charge basically is levied on every household for water whether they used it or not and regardless of whether the council delivered that water or not. It was built around an average household size, which penalised small families and those who were prepared to conserve water and use it carefully. The logic behind this charge was an assumption that people could not be in control of their own lives and budget for water they needed, and was part of the paternalistic colonial attitudes.

The very low rates for the first 10 cubic metres a month, with a sliding scale as monthly water consumption increased, had more logic, but that model’s viability has long broken down. The model was only viable when the council could treat and deliver more water than the city actually needed so it was necessary to encourage greater consumption. The model’s viability rested on the supposition that people with higher incomes and big plots would irrigate their gardens with expensive water and so subsidise people with small plots who used very little. For some decades most of those former high consumers have had little or no water in their municipal pipes and if they water their gardens they use boreholes or wells.

Those complaining about the proposed higher tariffs for the first 10 cubic metres need to understand that these tariffs are subsidised, and even with the proposed increases, will remain subsidised. The question is, of course, who pays the subsidies? The rich now have boreholes or have remodelled their gardens to use far less water, so the only real way to pay subsidies is to use rates income and that in turn means the people who would benefit from almost free water have to pay for it either directly or through their rates.

By going for direct charges, the council encourages wise water use, while paying subsidies through higher rates retains in effect the fixed charge and encourages waste. The council needs all consumers to take responsibility for the amount of water they use, and to do their best to use it wisely. Proper pricing and the removal or decrease in subsidies will do this, especially if it is coupled with pre-paid metres. Zesa has shown that pre-paid metres and a sensible charge cut average household consumption by more than 20 percent, even when load shedding was abolished, simply because people take charge of their energy use. Of course those who live in Harare would like an assurance that the water charges are fair. And where Harare is now leading it is likely to be followed by many other local authorities. So we need fair charges.

With Zesa charges there is an energy regulator, Zera, who checks Zesa’s figures and is totally unimpressed if a monopoly supplier wants higher charges to pay for inefficiency. Water consumers now need the same system and as Zinwa itself is a supplier, we need a new body. This need not be a major cost and it might well be possible to add water charges to Zera’s responsibilities since the financial models of power and water supply are remarkably similar. This would be part of the sensible new model for water charges: consumers pay the full cost, but that cost is checked by a regulator who refuses to sanction charges for inefficiency, corruption or waste. With all that in place, backed by pre-paid metres, it is quite likely that everyone in Harare could enjoy piped municipal water sold at a fair price and all households realising that they are now totally responsible for managing their consumption.