On Friday, September 15, 2017, a press conference was held in the premises of the TIAMA hotel, in the presence of the Minister of Economic Infrastructure Dr. Amédé KOUAKOU, the Director General of ONEP and the other directors general of the structures under supervision and SODECI, presidents of consumer movements.
The purpose of this conference was to present the new government program called ''WATER FOR ALL'' planned from 2017 to 2020. But the Minister first presented the various causes of water shortages, including climatic causes (the decline rains), technical causes (undersized networks, production deficit, technical breakdowns) and human causes (pollution of the resource, anarchic occupation of catchment fields, fraud on the network and many others).
The objective of this program, estimated at 200 billion FCFA, is to allow at least 95% of the population to have drinking water and to fill the deficits observed in certain regions and departments by 2020. To this end, it will include the repair over 3 years of 21,000 defective human-powered pumps at an estimated cost of 15 billion FCFA, the maintenance of which will be done via a monitoring mechanism; the construction of 200 new water towers with all pipelines and boreholes to increase the water production capacity in the regions; building water capacity in the various regional and departmental capitals; social connections at a fixed price of 1,000 FCFA per month over a given period instead of 147,000 FCFA, for 450,000 additional subscribers from January 2018, all for a total amount of 31 billion; the abolition of advances on consumption for owners in 2018.
He then addressed the issue of SODECI's billing period, which will be reduced from 3 to 2 months, this mechanism will allow the Ivorian to alternate the months of payment of his water and electricity bills. This new deal is created to make life easier for the populations because it is easier for an employee paid at the minimum wage to pay a water bill of 4000 FCFA rather than a bill of 6000 FCFA in addition to that of electricity, explained Dr. Amédé KOUAKOU during his presentation.
According to SODECI statistics, 60% of SODECI subscribers over the last 3 years have benefited from social connections. This approach was undertaken to help the populations who pay for water at 1200 FCFA per m3 at the reseller instead of 230 FCFA with SODECI.
After his presentation, he answered questions from the consumer presidents and journalists which focused on: the installation time and lifespan of a water meter, the schedule for carrying out the work stated, the adaptability of the new billing period for the various taxes, the lack of communion between structures such as ONEP or SODECI and consumers.
The CEO of SODECI, taking the floor, said that the lifespan of a water meter is 10 years. The deadline for the installation of a meter after payment to SODECI is 2 weeks (deadline which will be reduced according to the Minister), concerning the timetable for the implementation of the "WATER FOR ALL" program, Minister Dr Amédé KOUAKOU re-explained that he will agree on 3 years and the taxes will be reviewed according to the new billing periods.
The Minister reassured consumers that better communication will be done to create synergy between them and the structures under supervision, he also informed them of the creation of the ONEP Consumer Relations Center which can be reached on 22 51 47 00.
