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How we came to have piped water

 


Our village was beset with a shortage of drinking water. 


Every home had a well dug at the rear of the house. The water was good for bathing and washing but not for consumption. A stand pipe was erected on the edge of the metalled road close to every home. This water was meant for drinking purposes. But some villagers misused this facility by bathing and doing their washing at this standpipe too, leaving other irate villagers waiting for long hours to collect their drinking water. 


We had one enterprising plumber named Ah Soi who was prepared to lay pipes to enable drinking water from the stand pipe to be brought into our homes. This was illegal of course but you had to pay RM5 per home although the water consumed was about RM2.  The villagers did not complain as the convenience of having drinking water at home far outweighed the  small outlay. The revenue collected would be pocketed by Ah Soi and purportedly shared with the little ‘Napoleans’ i.e.employees at the Waterworks Department who wielded a lot of powers in decision making with regard to the laying of water pipes and the supply of water. The collections by Ah Soi continued even when there was a transfer of officers at the Waterworks Department. No one knew if the money collected was shared between Ah Soi and the staff at the Waterworks Department or pocketed by Ah Soi himself. 


One day Ah Soi fell ill and a new plumber replaced him. That month there was no collection. The following month the village headman collected the dues to handover to Ah Soi’s replacement.  Ah Soi’s replacement did not understand what was the collection for. When informed that Ah

 Soi collected it to hand over to the little Napoleans in the Waterworks Department, he took the money and went to the Waterworks Department in search of the little Napolean who collects money for the supply of water. 


At the office he was told that no collection is made by the Department without an invoice and when an invoice is issued for water supply it would state the amount due and for what period. The headman realised the game Ah Soi had played and reported to the residents. They were unhappy but were pleased that they would only have to pay when an invoice was issued. The headman obtained the services of a registered waterworks contractor and installed separate meters for each household to pay only when an invoice is issued and the water supply to households was regularised.  


The residents realised they had been taken for a ride all these years by Ah Soi and were happy their water bills reflected their actual  usage and were not being arbitrarily billed by middlemen.          



All contents (c) Ganapathy Ramasamy, mynameisgana@blogspot.com


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