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Download fileCost recovery at any cost?
conference contribution
posted on 2018-02-12, 15:08 authored by Andrew MacdonellScarce financial, human and water resources are major
constraints on the delivery of sustainable water supplies to
the previously disadvantaged rural communities of South
Africa. Of these constraints on sustainability, the scarcity
of financial resources has received the most attention.
During the period from 1994 –2000, the prevailing view in
the South African water sector was that some form of cost
recovery from the beneficiary communities was necessary
to compensate for the scarcity of external funding. Cost
recovery became to be seen as so central to sustainability
that, in many schemes, it became almost an end in itself.
However pronouncements during the local government
election of 2000 regarding the provision of “free” water
have called into question the appropriateness of cost
recovery.
This paper will step back from a detailed assessment of
specific cost recovery methodologies and focus on the
broad objectives and principles underpinning cost recovery
on rural water schemes. It will ask whether the pursuit of
cost recovery is really worth the cost given the changing
political priorities (best illustrated by the recent promise of
6kl of “free” water) and evidence that efficient cost recovery
severely reduces household consumption?
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