Prepaid Meters Are Obstacles to Accessing Water in Africa

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Prepaid Meters Are Obstacles to Accessing Water in Africa

[ http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3148 ... -in-africa ]

Sunday, 21 June 2015 00:00 By Jeffrey Moyo, Inter Press Service | Report

Harare - While many countries appear to have met the U.N. Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water, rights activists say that African countries which have taken to installing prepaid water meters have rendered a blow to many poor people, making it hard for them to access water.

“The goal to ensure that everyone has access to clean water here in Africa faces a drawback as a number of African countries have resorted to using prepaid water meters, which certainly bar the poor from accessing the precious liquid,” Claris Madhuku, director of the Platform for Youth Development, a Zimbabwean democracy lobby group, told IPS.

Prepaid water meters work in such a way that if a person cannot pay in advance, he or she will be unable to access water.

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[ http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3148 ... -in-africa ]