• Drinking Water Quality

WSS service providers are required to have an adequate water-testing programme for quality control and guarantee customers that the water they receive will conform to national drinking water standards.

• Service Hours

WSS service providers must assure their customers of a certain daily time average of water supply at household or public connections, as well as the operating hours of public service points.

• Billing for Services

Each customer is entitled to a water meter to ensure that they accurately pay for what they consume. It is the responsibility of WSS service providers to ensure that meters are regularly and correctly read and that subsequent bills are issued to customers. In turn, customers have a responsibility to ensure that payments are made at most two weeks from time of bill receipt.

• Client Contacts

WSS service providers must be easily accessible and responsive to their customers. Customers' queries, such as billing and water supply complaints, are required to be reasonably and expediently attended to.

• Interruption of Water Supply and Blockage of Sewer

Customers are not supposed to be subjected to unplanned or unannounced supply interruptions or sewer shutoffs beyond reasonable times. As a matter of convenience, WSS service providers should always endeavour to inform their customers in reasonable time of any interruption, whether planned or unplanned.

• Pressure in the Network for Water Supply

Customers are entitled to a minimum flow rate of water at their connections. Where this is not technically possible, only a limited proportion of customers should be affected in a particular area.

• Unjustified Disconnections

Unjustified disconnections or service withdrawals are inconveniencing to customers and as such, service providers must endeavour to limit unwarranted disconnections that they can impose on their customers. On the other hand, customers may demand compensation of up to one month’s free water supply should they be unjustifiably disconnected.

• Sewage Flooding

Sewage floods can pose an environmental as well as public health hazard. As such, service providers must institute maintenance measures to avoid such occurrences and in the unfortunate event of occurrence, they must ensure speedy redress within 24 hours.