Dubious Bills

It is mostly the case that every kind of services rendered by an organisation or institution tends to have its own shortfalls as long as evaluations by those who benefit from the services are concerned. Even an organisation or institution that brags to have the potential of delivering for its clients the best is bound to receive some misgiving from the same clients.

In some cases, authorities at the organisations or institutions give a blind eye to the cries of their clients and continue extolling the ‘virtues’ of their services without putting under consideration the fact that the same clients are constantly complaining. On the other hand, the same authorities reach the point of exploiting their clients by ‘reaping where they never sowed’.

Whether it is due to financial hiccups which their relevant organisations or institutions are facing, some authorities reach the point of charging very dubious amounts of money for services rendered even if it is clear that the same services’ value can never reach anywhere near the charge.

Most of these organisations take advantage of the fact that they are the only ones offering such kinds of services and are safe in the knowledge that their clients will have nowhere else to go even if the charges for the services offered are exorbitant. To them, what matters is that they should make more money, even if the services offered involve human life.

For instance, some private hospitals have the audacity of charging exorbitant bills for their patients with the aim of making exorbitant profits. Much as the services offered are always appreciated, it is also imperative to consider the fact that money does not grow on trees.

It might be true that the hospital might have struggled quite a lot to cure an illness, but consideration should also go to the patients themselves. This does not imply that the hospitals should charge less than they spend on caring for a patient. In fact, much as their main aim could be saving human life, they also need to be sustainable, and therefore need to make some profit.

Then we have the Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (ESCOM) and the water boards. These two statutory corporations are never short of surprises. Their all-round services leave a lot to be desired. Malawians have complained for times without number about the poor services offered by these utility institutions, but it appears people’s pleas only fade into dying embers which are finally stuck away where they are no longer considered.

It is so common to have power or water-flow disruptions, especially in the major cities of Blantyre and Lilongwe, such that it becomes abnormal if the two services go on without any cut-offs. It appears now, people can no longer grumble because they have done it many times before but it has failed to change things.

Yet, in spite of all these irregularities by these utility services providers, at the end of the month they charge very dubious bills, which cannot be justified. Both ESCOM and the water boards sometimes come up with bills which are far from being consistent even if there hasn’t been any addition in the consumption of the services. Of course, they can argue that the bills are not supposed to be consistent, but sometimes the differences tend to be just too much.

How does one explain a situation where the bill for the previous month was K3000 only for the bill for the following month to become K15000 where there hasn’t been any additional use of the services? In any normal household system, it may not make sense to expect electricity bills to go to the extent of five times more than the previous one.
And this is also the case with water bills.

No one can expect a bachelor who rarely stays at home to consume water to the extent of reaching K10 000 in bills. This is unrealistic. Yet, this is what many Malawians, especially those living in the major towns and cities are facing.

These dubious bills are killing Malawians. We appreciate the services offered by private hospitals, ESCOM and the water boards, but we want the bills they charge to be realistic. It should be proportional to the consumption rate, otherwise covering for your losses by charging exorbitant bills should be tantamount to theft.