By Thomas Thale

JOHANNESBURG WATER (JW) issued an ultimatum on Wednesday to defaulting government institutions: pay up within a week or face cut-offs.

A failure to pay could mean that some schools, clinics and other essential institutions have to go without water.

A statement from the city's water utility said "public and state-owned institutions, including, schools, government housing stock, parks and recreation facilities" had accumulated arrears of R80-million.

According to Jameel Chand, a spokesperson for JW, the worst culprits were provincial government institutions, which owed more than R40-million.

Chand said many of the arrears were "long outstanding issues, some of them stretching back four years".

JW said it would allow these institutions a "grace window" of five working days: they would have until 28 July to contact the water utility and arrange to have their accounts settled.

Chand said the decision to disconnect water was taken as a last resort and came after a failure to settle the matter in protracted negotiations.

"We have been negotiating with the different authorities. We have made it clear to them that JW is amenable. Some of them undertake to pay up but never fulfill their obligations," he said.

"We've told them that if they raise specific problems, they can sit down with a credit controller and go through the issues. We definitely don't want to go the route of cut-offs."
Source: Jonews