Roma households with illegal water connections cut off in Novo Mesto
Novo Mesto, 18 November - The Novo Mesto public utility has disconnected over a dozen illegal water connections in the Roma settlement of Žabjak in southeast Slovenia. Access to clean drinking water remains an issue in a number of Roma villages, especially in the southeast.
Žabjek - Brezje
Roma settlement Žabjak.
Photo: Tamino Petelinšek/STA
File photo
"About a quarter of the Roma are paying their water bills and it would not be fair to them if we did not take action against illegal connections," the utility company Komunala said on Monday, posting a photo of riot police standing guard in front of utility workers and another of a riot vehicle with mounted police in the back.
"Unless we did something, nobody would be paying for water anymore," Komunala said, adding that 3,000 cubic metres of water were lost a month due to the illegal water connections, which had pushed up water bills for the rest of the municipality.
The Žabjak village was connected to the public water supply in 2019 and 2020, with Komunala connecting 77 buildings. Since then, a number of illegal connections have been built, creating significant water losses.
Komunala added that its representatives had visited to village several times, proposing to residents that they make their connections legal by signing a water supply contract and paying a fee to set up the water meter.
Out of the 32 households with illegal connections, 14 made their water supply legal, while the rest were disconnected today. Komunala said the residents had been informed in advance that the illegal connections would be disconnected today.
The company has also reported water theft to the Novo Mesto Police Department.
Duško Smajek, a Roma councillor on the Novo Mesto city council, told the STA that several owners of illegal water connections had agreed to start paying for their water, but apparently some did not pay them.
He said he did not know exactly what went on, but stressed that an agreement had been reached in the spirit of everybody having the right to water. He had not been informed by the municipality that water bills had gone unpaid, nor about the disconnections.