Power all day, when there is no silt
A few weeks ago, Blantyre Water Board (BWB) shocked quite a few of us when it apologised to its customers for a serious water problem in Blantyre.
Now, there is no crime in BWB apologising for its omissions — in this world or the next — and that surely should shock no-one at all. But it was the irony, if not the arrogance, of the apology that riled some of us.
In its arrogant apology, BWB singled out a few areas for feeling the disruption of the water supply that lasted two days — a ‘mere’ two days. Now, don’t get me wrong here; I just wondered what was particularly worrisome or important about these areas that they merited special mention when there are areas I know which go dry for weeks than days and BWB doesn’t just seem to care.
The area I live in, which is less than a kilometre away from its head office, experiences more periods of dry taps than would be particularly acceptable — and we are not talking about a mere two days. There are some areas like Chigumula whose people can remember exactly when their water was running in their taps because that doesn’t happen too often and even when it does, it is usually in the dead of the night.
Yet, the board has never considered it appropriate to apologise for the perennial inconvenience. On second thoughts, though, I know I am asking for far too much from the board; the cost of running adverts apologising for these dry spells could overwhelm its finances.
Of course, for those areas that suffer from chronic water shortages (and indeed, for the entire Blantyre), the board has ready-made excuses: either whoever designed the water system in the city was so dull that he didn’t envisage a population boom 50 years later or the politicking in Parliament prevented it from discussing some water bill, which would have solved the problem.
Whatever the case, I didn’t set out to settle scores, if any, with BWB. It was about Escom that I set out to write on but can one really comment on one, given their similarities, and ignore the other?
For the better part of last week, Escom kept large parts of Blantyre in the dark and it was all blamed on the usual suspect, silt — easily the most overused and meaningless excuse by Escom, if there was any.
We have had load shedding for two years now, which started off innocently as a temporary measure while Escom dredged up the silt at their generating stations.
Two years later, Escom has no clue about what to do with silt and instead, tries as much as possible to publish schedules of load shedding, which are as informative as a prescription from medical doctor. And medical doctors are not reputed for writing anything legible to anyone but themselves.
Escom’s schedules of load shedding are equally bad, making sense only to themselves because I can’t remember the last time they religiously followed their schedules.
I’ll try to suggest to Escom to change its slogan to ‘Power all day, everyday, when there is no silt.’ It would make more sense.
Now, there is no crime in BWB apologising for its omissions — in this world or the next — and that surely should shock no-one at all. But it was the irony, if not the arrogance, of the apology that riled some of us.
In its arrogant apology, BWB singled out a few areas for feeling the disruption of the water supply that lasted two days — a ‘mere’ two days. Now, don’t get me wrong here; I just wondered what was particularly worrisome or important about these areas that they merited special mention when there are areas I know which go dry for weeks than days and BWB doesn’t just seem to care.
The area I live in, which is less than a kilometre away from its head office, experiences more periods of dry taps than would be particularly acceptable — and we are not talking about a mere two days. There are some areas like Chigumula whose people can remember exactly when their water was running in their taps because that doesn’t happen too often and even when it does, it is usually in the dead of the night.
Yet, the board has never considered it appropriate to apologise for the perennial inconvenience. On second thoughts, though, I know I am asking for far too much from the board; the cost of running adverts apologising for these dry spells could overwhelm its finances.
Of course, for those areas that suffer from chronic water shortages (and indeed, for the entire Blantyre), the board has ready-made excuses: either whoever designed the water system in the city was so dull that he didn’t envisage a population boom 50 years later or the politicking in Parliament prevented it from discussing some water bill, which would have solved the problem.
Whatever the case, I didn’t set out to settle scores, if any, with BWB. It was about Escom that I set out to write on but can one really comment on one, given their similarities, and ignore the other?
For the better part of last week, Escom kept large parts of Blantyre in the dark and it was all blamed on the usual suspect, silt — easily the most overused and meaningless excuse by Escom, if there was any.
We have had load shedding for two years now, which started off innocently as a temporary measure while Escom dredged up the silt at their generating stations.
Two years later, Escom has no clue about what to do with silt and instead, tries as much as possible to publish schedules of load shedding, which are as informative as a prescription from medical doctor. And medical doctors are not reputed for writing anything legible to anyone but themselves.
Escom’s schedules of load shedding are equally bad, making sense only to themselves because I can’t remember the last time they religiously followed their schedules.
I’ll try to suggest to Escom to change its slogan to ‘Power all day, everyday, when there is no silt.’ It would make more sense.
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