Water sold in cans on Huynh Tan Phat Street to residents who have not been connected to the city water supply system.

Many households in outlying areas of Ho Chi Minh City are thirsty for drinking water after city water suppliers have refused to connect them to the pipeline.

“My whole family is thirsty,” Anh said

Many families in Nha Be Town and around hundred others in the nearby District 7 said there was pipeline that runs through the area but the Nha Be Water Supply Company has not considered their applications since the middle of August to be connected to the network.

Nguyen Doan Xa, deputy director of the company, said it was sending tanks carrying around 1,500 cubic meters of water every day to local streets, but the volumes were yet to meet people’s need.

Anh said she and her neighbors had to buy water from other sources at around VND36,000 (US$2) a cubic meter, ten times higher than the VND2,700/m3 that the city sells water to connected residents. The “black market” price has gone up lately to VND130,000 (US$7.26) a cubic meter but there’s still not enough for everyone, she said.

In a letter sent recently to Thanh Nien, many residents complained: “We, poor hired workers, have to buy water from other sources for VND80,000-250,000 a cubic meter.”

Thanh, a local resident on Huynh Tan Phat Street of District 7, said “the city leaders promised to solve the problem in September, but it’s November now and we still see no water.”

An official from Saigon Water Corporation (Sawaco) that oversees all water supply companies in the city, said under condition of anonymity that the newly-built Thu Duc water plant started to supply 100,000 cubic meters of water a day in May but parts of the pipeline system were not finished, so the plant has only managed to bring water to Districts 2, 9 and Thu Duc so far.

Xa of the Nha Be water company said he has no idea when the pipeline will be completed.

Truong Khac Hoanh, deputy general director of the Thu Duc water plant, said ground-clearance trouble has delayed work on the pipeline and as it cuts through the East-West Highway Project, the company had to move it underground.

“I hope the pipeline can be finished this year,” he said.

Hoanh said the company was using a different pipeline of Sawaco’s to temporarily provide 60,000 cubic meters of water a day to residents in districts 7 and Nha Be, but the residents said the water pressure was too weak they didn’t get a single drop even after waiting until 3 in the morning.

Reported by Nguyen Dinh Muoi