The past two weeks I have been facing a personal crisis at
home. The water connection was cut off on 6 November and still has not been
reconnected. At first, I felt like a politician slumming it out and showing I
can manage for a day without clean, running water but was very soon brought
back to reality. Without water you cannot flush your toilets, drink from a tap,
shower or wash your hands. Everything is returned to a basic water access
through a bucket or a drum. This made me think of the quote by Marcus
Samuelsson, “Clean water and access to
food are some of the simplest things that we can take for granted each and
every day. In places like Africa, these can be some of the hardest resources to
attain if you live in a rural area.”
I was upset with my water being off and contacted the City
of Windhoek to give them a piece of my mind. They in turn pointed out that I
have a rental contract with the price of water included, but that my landlady
had not paid them for a few months. I contacted my landlady who stated that it
was a billing problem as she paid via online banking and thus the error was the
municipality. Well, back to the debtors department at City of Windhoek (CoW).
After checking again, they insisted the error was with the landlady and not
their billing system.
In the meantime, I was willing to pay the outstanding amount
of around N$ 2,000 to get my water connected and would then just subtract it
from the rent.
The landlady once again assured me that it was not necessary
for me to pay as there was a billing error. However, I realised that this was
not the truth as someone had been sent to deposit money on this account, but
the CoW did not deem it sufficient to reconnect my water.
As a consumer, I was now being severely impacted by the
landlady who as my service supplier was (and still is) not keeping her side of
the agreement. Not only was I being deprived of an inherent right of the
contract, I was also getting a lot of flak from my pregnant wife!
Looking at this as a consumer, what is my rights in a case
like this where my water is caused to be cut-off by my landlord? The first
thing to consider is that the issue is a civil case and is not governed by
criminal law – which means I have no recourse to a police person to assist, but
rather through the courts. Secondly, as the wronged party what cause of action
can I take now to get my water reconnected, and thirdly how do I get
compensated for the loss of water, time and the indignity of getting water from
neighbours and friends?
As this is a civil case, neither party has recourse to the
police – meaning that a difference on this or keeping back part of the rent is
cause for getting the police involved. As the wronged party, I can decide to go
to the CoW and pay the outstanding amount and then deduct this amount from the
rental and submit the invoice for the water paid. The third part is the
hardest, what should I be compensated for this wrong? I have looked into the
matter and believe that any tenant has the right to deduct pro rata the amount
of rent for each day the material aim of the contract is not kept by the
landlord. In plain English, if I rent a property of N$ 6,000 a month, I may
deduct an amount of 200 per day for the water being cut off due to negligence
from the side of the landlord. In my case, the rent will be less by an amount
of one-third (or more) as the water is still cut-off and the landlord insists
that she has paid the water.
I would have just have preferred to have running water!
I would have just have preferred to have running water!
