Rwanda Utility Regulatory Authority (RURA) has announced that, beginning next month, there will be a sharp hike in cost for water and electricity. Price increase is an expected outcome for any service delivery firm and many factors are taken into consideration. Operational overheads are not constant and could be the result of market volatility, but that would not rule out questioning the logic of raising prices anyhow. Revision of the cost of any public utility would, in normal circumstances, go hand-in-hand with seamless service delivery, but is that the case with our utilities? The former Electrogaz that was the sole distributor of water and electricity was one of the government entities that changed names several times. Today it is difficult to keep up with the different names ever since the organisation was split. But the quest for efficiency has not hit home. While frequent power cuts and load shedding is not as widespread as in other African capitals, the cost of a kilowatt/hour is very expensive and people have the right to request equivalent services which the power distribution body has been trying to deliver. But it is the water sector that has been the bane of many neighbourhoods in Kigali. Some go for months with dry taps and the tiny sprinkles that come in the dead of the night keep many households awake stocking up on the precious commodity. The city is growing at a spectacular pace and it will need more than price hikes to keep up. Better service delivery will help quell the painful gesture of digging deep into the pockets to meet the bills.
