By Aly Ouattara
KORHOGO, Northern Côte d'Ivoire, Dec 5 2006 (IPS)

While there may be no such thing as a free lunch, people living in the north of Côte d’Ivoire have come close. For the past four years, free water and electricity have been supplied to citizens in this region, an area under rebel control.

The New forces (Forces Nouvelles) are now making another attempt to get people to pay for the services, as small businesses and factories have been doing since 2004. But, their prospective customers seem distinctly unwilling to cough up the cash.

“We’re going to chase water and electric company bill collectors away from our homes, because as long as there is war and the country remains divided we’re not going to pay these bills,” says Yves Silué, a shopkeeper at Trengrela market in the far north.

“It’s an agreement that was made at the very beginning of the war, and we were supported and encouraged in this by the rebels,” he adds, in reference to how the Forces Nouvelles initially gave the green light to free services, this in a bid to muster public support.

Soungalo Tuo, unemployed – and from Niakaramadougou in the centre of the country – is also upset about the latest development.

“It’s very hard to pay these bills because I haven’t received a salary in four years. My wife now pays the family expenses, thanks to her small business,” he notes. Adding water and electricity bills to these costs, Tuo says, “could destroy our household”.

Officials from the Ivorian Electricity Company (Compagnie ivoirienne d’électricité, CIE) are unmoved by such protestations, however – as with those from the Water Distribution Company of Côte d’Ivoire (Société de distribution d’eau de la Côte d’Ivoire, SODECI): they intend to use all means necessary to collect on their bills. These are intended to compensate for losses incurred during the country’s civil conflict, which began in 2002 in the wake of a failed coup that saw Côte d’Ivoire divided into a rebel-held north and government-controlled south.

“We are awaiting authorisation from the Forces Nouvelles to begin sending out…accounts dated January to December 2006,” Aristide Yao, an assistant to the CIE regional director for the north, told IPS. “If a customer doesn’t pay his bill, we’re going to cut him off by removing his meters.”

An agreement signed in January this year by Forces Nouvelles leaders and officials from CIE and SODECI states that people will have to pay for services used in 2006.

Attempts to collect on accounts issued in 2005 ended in failure.

But Françoise Mamou Doukouré, an attorney in the commercial capital – Abidjan – says the rebels have little choice but to oversee another effort at enforcing payment. “If the Forces Nouvelles don’t act in this way, they’ll have a hard time controlling them (people living in areas under rebel control) when they have to suspend free services,” she noted, looking ahead to a post-conflict Côte d’Ivoire.

Similar words come from Mamadou Kanigui Soro, head of the civilian cabinet that the rebels have established in the northern town of Korhogo (a military cabinet also exists): “This active involvement of the Forces Nouvelle aims to reintegrate people into the usual system of paying bills that existed before the war – because if we’re able to rise to power, people are going to have to pay for what they use.”

According to Yao, rates vary between 1.5 and two dollars for water, and from four to 20 dollars for electricity – payable every two months.

During the four years of rebel control, infrastructure has deteriorated considerably in the north. Water and electricity supplies are often interrupted, at great inconvenience to consumers.

According to officials at CIE and the SODECI, payment for services is essential to the replacement and maintenance of infrastructure.

“Our officials estimate that we cannot send spare parts to areas of the country where consumers do not pay for what they have used. The four-year free service and the pillaging of our equipment and logistics caused enormous losses of nearly 30 million dollars,” said Yao.

“In Boundiali and Bouna in the extreme north, four transformers and a…power plant, destroyed by lightning in June 2006, have never been repaired or replaced. This has caused some people to live without electricity.”

Not all members of the public are unsympathetic to these arguments.

“Consumers have to try to pay their bills because we cannot continue to use water and electricity for free…People have to pay so that we can maintain existing equipment,” Zoumana Sako, a teacher at Modern High School (Lycée moderne) in Korhogo, told IPS.

Kouassi Kouadio, SODECI’s technical director for the northern region, says that after the bills are issued, customers will be given a breathing space to get their accounts in order. But, “When the grace period expires, we will move ahead with cutting off running water by removing the meters.”

SODECI has more than 45,000 clients in the north of the country; water is on tap every second day in the various towns under rebel control.

Officials from SODECI and CIE say that they will also continue efforts to raise awareness of the need to pay for services, this with the assistance of civilian managers deployed by the Forces Nouvelles.

“By negotiating we’ll lead consumers to see how urgent it is to pay these bills,” Kouadio told IPS.

The Forces Nouvelles claim to have taken up arms to fight against discrimination against people in northern Côte d’Ivoire by those in south. A number of truces have been declared ahead of planned elections; however, these polls have now been postponed twice.

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