Abidjan — As the rebel capital Bouake enters its second month without running water, Cote d'Ivoire's privately owned utilities companies told IRIN on Friday that broken-down machinery will not be repaired until people in the rebel-held north start paying their water and electricity bills.

Bouake, the country's second largest city, has been without tap water since a main hydraulic pump at a dam fell into disrepair a month ago. At the same time a broken-down transformer has deprived several Bouake neighbourhoods of power.

Although the UN mission in Cote d'Ivoire is currently distributing nearly 40,000 litres of purified water per day to the most vulnerable, humanitarian workers are concerned that health problems may surface.

"It's clearly worrisome," said a UN official from Bouake who declined to be named. "We're talking about an estimated one million people who lack water."

But the utilities companies say they cannot invest in repair and maintenance of the rapidly deteriorating infrastructure until costumers pay invoices the firms began sending out last year after a brief awareness campaign.

"We get our money from those customers who pay their bills," said Bernardin Kouame Kouadio, operations manager for the national electricity provider, CIE. "It's been almost four years that people in the north don't pay."

"We've tried to reduce our costs in the south in order to finance the north, but we simply can't afford to go on like this. We're stretched to the limit."

CIE, along with the country's water company SODECI, continued to supply rebel territory with free electricity and tap water after insurgents seized the arid northern half of the country in September 2002. The electricity company alone has lost 50 billion CFA, or US $98 million, since the outbreak of civil war.

Kouadio said that distributing free water was not a long-term solution and companies would rather the UN explained to people why they should pay up.

"If you give free water, what are we going to do after the crisis is over? If our companies don't get paid, the entire water and power infrastructures will break down," he said. "We have to save this sector of the economy."

CIE serves some 176,000 costumers in rebel territory, most of whom have an annual electricity bill of around 15,000 CFA, or US $30.

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]