Tanga planning to hike water prices

Water and Sewerage Authority in Tanga has a total of 25,800 customers who are directly connected to a 543 kilometres network constructed during the colonial era in 1940. This not withstanding the fact that Tanga is made up of 9 Councils and this year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics the city has at least 2,064,433 people, the number that projects the reality of how its residents use water and sewage system.

To improve services and ensure availability of clean water through out the year, Tanga Water and Sewerage Authority is scheduled to announce new water prices with a slight increase from 575/- to 964/- per 1,000 litres. The Authority’s Director, Eng Joshua Mgeyekwa made the announcement during a stakeholders meeting held in Tanga recently.

He further explained that a 20 litres bucket will now cost 19.28/- an increase of 7.78 percent from the previous 11.50/- for a 20 litre bucket.

“We haven’t received funds from the central government for years now, we have been running the authority with money from our own sources…” revealed the director as he explained the need and logic behind raising the prices and to alley any worries from low income families, he added that, “…the new prices have considered low income earners because our aim is to make sure that every resident has access to clean water…”.

Earlier, Assistance Technician, Rashid Shabani said the water authority faces a lot of challenges in the course of offering its services and on top of that list is water losses, through theft and poor monitoring and tracking systems. It is estimated that the company looses some 27.78 percent of its production and that translates to millions lost in revenue.

Making things worse, most of the infrastructure is decrepit that means 90 kilometers of clean water piping is not reliable as are the 10 kilometres for sewerage.

Most of Tanga residents are not connected to the network of water and sewage systems and as such the slight increase in prices will be used to improve infrastructure and expand services to the city’s outskirts.