Abubakar Yakubu
14 March 2008
Abuja — Water vendors at Mararaba yesterday protested a slight increase in borehole water prices.
At Aso area of Mararaba, vendors shunned boreholes that stuck to the N10 price increase while those that maintained the former price were patronized.
A water vendor, Chinedu said those that increase the water prices were been unfair to the vendors.
"We have contributed a lot to the growth of some of these boreholes around here and I see no reason for the present increase," he said.
Another vendor, Mustapha, lamented that most water vendors get their carts and jerry cans at N500 rental fee daily and also take care of the expenses of repairing the carts whenever they get bad.
He said the present increase would only make vendors quit the job.
"Our job requires us to feed well as well as take constant drugs because it is tedious," he said.
One of the borehole owners in the area told our reporter that borehole operators want to maximize profit.
Mr Akan said a meeting of all borehole operators in the area is being planned so that all borehole operators would come out with a comprehensive price list that would be binding on all members.
"You can see that my borehole has been deserted because I increased my price but I assure you that the vendors would surely come back," he said.
It would be recalled that last week, water vendors at Nyanya embarked on a similar protest.
The vendors organized some of their members into a monitoring team and harassed their members that were seen selling water around Nyanya.
Our reporter noticed members of the monitoring team using clubs and stones on erring members of the association in order to enforce the strike.
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