Have your say: Pure extortion

Maungaturoto's ratepayers have paid a huge amount for water, with little visible benefit.

Maungaturoto's ratepayers have paid out approximately $800,000 in water rates in two years.

The dairy company must have contributed on top of this for their filtered water as well. It is anybody's guess how much.

We are expected to pay 15 per cent more next year, a charge well ahead of inflation or interest rates, so this should extract another $500,000 at least next year.

A tidy sum collected for which we have seen little maintenance or upgrading going around this town. How many more years will this extortion go on?

How much will the upgrade of water infrastructure cost? As this is the reason we were given for the hefty increase in charges.

Could we not have some transparency? We suspect that this money is being siphoned off to service the debt.

Dargaville is also staggering under the same increases in charges. Can we not have some open discussion about these costs also? Why the need to charge the full annual charge on a six-monthly bill? What a Christmas present!

Brian Dent,
Greypower Maungaturoto

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