Water and power provision fail over lack of investment in rebel north

As infrastructure crumbles, hundreds of thousands of residents of the rebel held capital Bouake in central Cote d’Ivoire have to draw their drinking water from wells and many have no electricity, officials told IRIN on Wednesday. Taps ran dry in Bouake, the second largest city in the country, when a hydraulic pump at the dam fell into disrepair nearly two weeks ago, while several neighbourhoods lack electricity because of a broken-down transformer. On Tuesday, scores of residents took to the streets demanding the utilities companies restore water and power to the city. But Damas Coulibaly of the national water company SODECI told IRIN that residents need to pay their bills if the problems are to be fixed. “We haven’t been able to set aside funds for this year’s maintenance plan,” said Coulibaly by telephone from Bouake. “The key problem is that people are not paying their bills.” Cote d’Ivoire’s utilities companies have continued to supply an estimated six million people living in the rebel-held north with free water and electricity since insurgents launched a rebellion that split the country in two, in September 2002. Facing huge financial losses, water firm SODECI, along with the country's electricity company CEI, started billing costumers in the north last year, but most people are simply ignoring the invoices, saying they don’t have the money to pay. And with no revenue flowing in from the rebel zone, investment in maintenance has ground to a near halt and the infrastructure is falling to pieces. “We have done everything to warn them, but a lot of people seem to think that it is God who is giving them drinking water,” said Coulibaly. But a restaurant worker said unemployment in Bouake was so high that the companies simply couldn’t expect people to take care of their bills until the nearly four-year-old crisis is resolved. “Most people don’t have a job, so how can they pay?” said the worker who gave her name as Helene. “Now we’re all making do with water from wells, but I hope that a solution will be found soon.”