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Cameroon: Assumed Water Bills Irk Consumers
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The Post (Buea)
17 March 2008
Posted to the web 17 March 2008
Olive Ejang Tebug Ngoh
Customers of the Cameroon National Water Corporation, SNEC, in Kumba, are overwhelmed by what they consider inflated water bills.
Some of them talked to The Post on March 13, after receiving their February bills. One John Abanda of Mulango Street, Fiango, said the face of his meter is blurred, which makes reading the figures difficult.
He said last year, he complained to some SNEC agents who asked him to pay a huge sum of money for the metre to be cleaned.But Abanda argued that metre reading is the responsibility of SNEC and he wouldn't pay a dime. He lamented that the agents have continued to overestimate his bills since then.
The consumer stated that when a SNEC agent handed him the February bill, he questioned how it had been determined.Abanda said the agent told him they only guessed the February consumption from the previous months. He said he argued with the agent, insisting that he was a new tenant of the house with reduced consumption, unlike his predecessor.
"The SNEC agent told me, "I guess and write on the bill that your meter is dirty."Abanda complained that the FCFA 6,841 per month for water is too much considering the high cost of living.
Another consumer, Esther Ning, explained that though her meter is readable, the readings are always wrong and all her complaints to SNEC have fallen on deaf ears.She expressed fears that an attack is looming on the corporation by the population because of accumulated grievances.
It should be noted that early this year, the former Government Delegate to the Kumba Urban Council, Caven Nnoko Mbele, told the Kumba population not to pay fraudulent SNEC bills.
He had insisted in a communiqué that anybody who suspects wrong meter reading should not pay and SNEC has no right to inflict penalties on them.
Nnoko had also discussed with the Kumba SNEC Chief of Center, Besong Ngem on how to better their services to the public.But Meme Senior Divisional Officer, SDO, Magloire Abath Zangbwala, has castigated Nnoko for inciting the public to violence. He said people have the right to pay bills and the Delegate is not supposed to stop them.
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Nnoko has sealed his lips since then and the SDO too has never called a meeting to resolve the crisis.Besong Ngem told The Post that they never read meters wrongly or cheat the population. She said any consumer who fells cheated should come up with a complaint.
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