JEDDAH, 30 December 2005 — Residents of Jeddah have resorted recently to illegal ways to get as much water as possible by installing strong pumps, Al-Watan daily reported. These pumps are extracting water from municipality pipes.
Other people are building water storage tanks to stock water for days when the pipes are dry. And still other residents are diverting water from neighbors’ pipes.
Because of the big water problem in Jeddah, these residents are violating the law openly without fear of punitive action.
South Jeddah resident Salah Muhammad said that water-shortage problems are nothing new.
“Every week we are getting small quantities of water from the desalination plant,” said Muhammad.
He added that all residents in his neighborhood began installing pumps in their water storage to pull as much water from the pipes to their system.
“Last time we received a water bill of SR400,” said Muhammad. “I want to know on what bases they charged us SR400 when the water meters are not working? I paid a lot for water tankers. I see people around me using illegal ways to get water from the municipality pipes.”
Jeddah resident Hasan Mihdar said that he did not know anything about the illegal ways by which residents get water until his neighbor told him.
“It’s not fair that these people are using illegal ways to get water at the expense of other people. This is totally unfair and explains why I am getting little water in my tank when other neighbors are flooded with water.
“I think that the municipality should monitor these people. They should be held accountable.”
People justify the use of pumps to draw more water from municipal pipes by blaming the lack of services and the weak pumping from the desalination plant.
Apartment building owner Abu Abdullah said that if water comes regularly, then no one would use illegal ways to get water.
“Let them correct the water situation in the neighborhood before they blame us for anything,” said Abdullah.
