God provides water, it is true but when Companies are involved we do have to pay the invoice ! don't we ?

© IRIN

Facilities are failing Ivorians in the rebel north

ABIDJAN, 10 May 2006 (IRIN) - As infrastructure crumbles, hundreds of thousands of residents of the rebel held capital Bouake in central Cote d’Ivoire have to draw their drinking water from wells and many have no electricity, officials told IRIN on Wednesday.

Taps ran dry in Bouake, the second largest city in the country, when a hydraulic pump at the dam fell into disrepair nearly two weeks ago, while several neighbourhoods lack electricity because of a broken-down transformer.

On Tuesday, scores of residents took to the streets demanding the utilities companies restore water and power to the city. But Damas Coulibaly of the national water company SODECI told IRIN that residents need to pay their bills if the problems are to be fixed.

“We haven’t been able to set aside funds for this year’s maintenance plan,” said Coulibaly by telephone from Bouake. “The key problem is that people are not paying their bills.”

Cote d’Ivoire’s utilities companies have continued to supply an estimated six million people living in the rebel-held north with free water and electricity since insurgents launched a rebellion that split the country in two, in September 2002.

Facing huge financial losses, water firm SODECI, along with the country's electricity company CEI, started billing costumers in the north last year, but most people are simply ignoring the invoices, saying they don’t have the money to pay.

And with no revenue flowing in from the rebel zone, investment in maintenance has ground to a near halt and the infrastructure is falling to pieces.

“We have done everything to warn them, but a lot of people seem to think that it is God who is giving them drinking water,” said Coulibaly.

But a restaurant worker said unemployment in Bouake was so high that the companies simply couldn’t expect people to take care of their bills until the nearly four-year-old crisis is resolved.

“Most people don’t have a job, so how can they pay?” said the worker who gave her name as Helene. “Now we’re all making do with water from wells, but I hope that a solution will be found soon.”

West Africa´s most beautiful country in the 80´s (although I´ m a Nigerian I have to admit it!!) has had a very nasty downfall in the course of the years. everybody who went to Abidjan ten or fiteen years back was overwhelmed by the city´s beauty and modernity. Now everything has lost shine and the country is in tatters. Nobody wants to go there anymore.

African who are  helping these rebels by providing them with troops ,diplomatic support and warfare hardware  can also be sure that no one who is mentally stable will  appreciates this  evil entreprise.
It is surprising to notice that those ( Compaore', Toumani Toure', Bongo, Abdoulaye wade ) who have been some sort of housespeakers on ivorians rebels'  behalf  do not do anything for their protege'.
A  senegalese MP recently made public files on mister wade 's involvment in "bleaching" stolen money ( 1 million dollars=  500 millions CFA)  from a bank in Bouake' ,northern Ivory coast rebel held area.

panafrican, sorry I can´t believe you. Mr Wade of Senegal is a well-respected person and Senegal is showing great strength of improvement. He is really hard-working and loves his country very dearly. I know some Senegalese whom I like very much, (they are clever and nice and honest people). They have told me a lot about Francophone africa (especially Ivory Coast and Senegal). Moreover, I also went to some Ivoirian forums and saw how disgustingly you treat your own brothers and sisiters who have worked for your country´s well-being. YOU TALK VERY VERY BADLY AND MISTREAT THEM GRAVELY: Futhermore, there was a great Nigerian community in Abidjan and they really felt discriminated against in your country , and now you want to GO TO a NIGERIAN forum by tainting images of well-respected presidents like that of Wade in Senegal who is a one of the few panafricanist and one of the creators of NEPAD together with Thabo Mbéki BY SPREADING LIES ! ?

PLESE DON´T TAKE IT AMISS but the problems of your country have built up already in the 90´s and reached its logic climax n 2002. Most of the following presidents gave a toss for their people as opposed to the first benevelont autocrat named Houphouet-Boigny.

OK. let´s skip it here as this is Nigerian forum and we want to talk about things affecting our beloved country

You are entitlled to your opinion, but you are just wrong.Besides you cannot vouch panafrican from Ivory coast.
Before talking about his country why don't you ask yourself questions on the conditions under wich Nigeria kicked out millions of west africans in the 1980s?

Why don't you tell the mistreated people in Ivory coast to come to Nigeria?

Wade said quote << we want ecowas, sure ,but without nigeria , because we don't want millions of nigeria will invade us >>. Ask why OBasanJo didn't want to speak to wade during the first 6 month wade was elected for the first time .So how can somebody people like that blame another country for xenophobia?

I don´t know what you are talking about so stop talking this crab, ooo! Nigerians are ten times friendlier and more open-hearted than the majority of the arrogant Ivoirians. They are only looking for people to blame for their country´s downfall. Nigeria and Ivory Coast have always been competing on economic terms with each other in the past.

In Nigeria foreigners are welcome and treated well which is not and has never been the case in Ivory Coast. I know that country as I went there in the past.

Moreover, Wade never said that! Not Wade, NEVER!

peace

Either cosntantgin is less than 30 years old ( he may even be a teenager) or he is just narrow minded.
Go back to the early 1980s and check how millions of africans were packed like cattles in shaky vehicles and thrown out of nigeria. A lot of them died due to severe wound caused brutalities.
The reasons are well known.

Obasanjo orders a full investigation.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4768159.stm

Well, this act in the early 80´s was perverse but is was a single act .(the same happens in South Africa, more than half a million people had to leave the country although they had legal papers but western media only show us the tanned fair-haired surfer boys and snazzy side walk cafés of Cape Town) , expulsions , in Ivory Coast are things that happen on a daily basis: people are dreadfully mistreated and whipped in open daylight when they are foreigners,


What has got the BBC World article to do when the Ivorian unrest?

I AM A PROUD NIGERIAN AND I LOVE MY COUNTRY

Constantin ,
Next time read and think twice before accusing other people.
Shame on you.
Panafrican should not even continue this debate with you.

Nkilia, you do not seem to love our country, some Ivoirian guy comes along and puts dirt on Nigeria and all you can say is "shame on me"? I am a Nigerian and I love my country and I AM PROUD OF IT! I don´t want other people to talk badly of it while presenting themselves in a shiny way! That ´s all

Constantin ,Just leave the computer keyboard to your dad. It is not a toy !
See you !

Nikilia, there is nothing bad to it that I support my beloved country; NIGERIA! What happens in Ivory Coast is of no particular interest to us, I think. They speak French and we speak English, we cannot even understand each other. We are worlds apart,

PEACE