THE City of Windhoek has corrected errors it made by charging residents about 20% more on water bills from 1 July to early September.
This was revealed in the municipal documents submitted at the council’s monthly meeting on Thursday.
The municipality announced in June this year that the tariffs charged on water consumption will be increased by 5% for the current financial year which started on 1 July.
The increase was necessitated by a 5% increase in bulk water tariffs by the Namibia Water Corporation
(Nam Water) from which the municipality gets most of its water.
However, the council book stated that instead of charging an increase of 5% on water tariffs, the municipality erroneously charged residents a 20% increase on tariffs. “The application of a formula to calculate the approved 5% on most tariffs was done erroneously. This unfortunately resulted in a condition where [an additional] 15% was processed.
“The affected tariffs were increased by 20%, and not as anticipated by 5% as was approved by council,” the book reads.
The error was, however, corrected and approved at Thursday’s council meeting.
Water tariffs are determined on a cost-recovery basis, for which an average 60% of the water is consumed by the domestic consumers and 40% consumed by non-domestic consumers, the council document states.
For businesses, the municipality will charge N$47,41 per kilolitre. This rate will apply to all non-domestic consumption.
Residents who own flats, or legal entities with five or more communal meter(s) will be charged N$35 per kilolitre.
For communal water points, residents will be charged N$28,41 per kilolitre, while entities operating under the economic processing zones (EPZ) will be charged N$28,7 per kilolitre.
The document furthermore shows that the municipality will, however, charge consumers in the Brakwater area at a rate of N$30,84 per kilolitre.
According to the council document, the Brakwater tariff is based on the NamWater tariff of +20%.
Under the revised tariffs, the document states that no value-added tax (VAT) will be charged on the supply of water to residential/domestic
account holders.
However, the supply of water to all non-residential account holders and for all other water-related services will be charged at a 15% VAT.
The domestic tariff is considered the base tariff.
The non-domestic tariff is 19% higher than the domestic tariff rate.
The tariff charged for communal water points is 18% lower than the domestic tariff, while the tariff for EPZ enterprises is 6% lower than the non-domestic water tariff.
A number of factors, such as the cost of the bulk purchase increases, inflation on goods and services, current economic conditions, fuel price increases, outstanding debts, and additional costs to treat water were taken into consideration before the decision was made.
The new tariff structure, according to the council, will change, depending on the different severity levels of the drought. In addition to the new tariff, the municipality has also introduced a host of water-savings initiatives effective today to save up to 15% of normal water consumption during the current financial year.
The Namibian reported in May that the total weekly consumption in the city will be reduced from 539 000 cubic metres to 465 000 cubic metres, from this month.
The municipality declared in May [2019] that the water situation has moved from category C (scarcity) to category D, which is a more severe water scarcity or drought.
The tariffs will remain the same for all categories, but the limits after which residents incur penalties are lowered with each new category.
