Degradation Of The Ethical (Social) Sustainability Of Public Drinking Water Services In The Municipality Of Dassa-Zoume In Benin

Abstract

In the municipality of Dassa-Zoume, there is a real problem of unequal access to public drinking water services. This paper studies the ethical sustainability of public drinking water services in the municipality of Dassa-Zoume.

The 3E method was used for this research. It made it possible to assess the weight of the cost of water in monthly household income and to analyze the rate of complaints and unpaid bills. Data was collected through documentary research and field surveys carried out among 100 households and 20 stakeholders in the management of public drinking water services. Data processing and analysis was made possible by Sphinx 4.5 software.

The results show that 32.9% of households surveyed have a monthly salary of less than 15,000 FCFA, 26% of households have their salary between 15,000 and 30,000 FCFA and only 12.1% of households have a salary greater than 60,000 FCFA. The chi2 test carried out shows a dependence is very significant at the threshold α = 0.05 (chi2 = 124.77, dof = 12, 1-p => 0.0001%) between the monthly income of the monthly and the quantity of daily water consumed. Low-income households consume less water than households with incomes above 60,000 F. Monthly, the minimum cost of access to water per person is 673 F and the maximum is 8,481 F. This cost represents at least 22.8% of the income of poor households and 7.07% of the income of households that earn at least 60,000 F monthly. These rates greatly exceed the threshold of 3% accepted for the service to be ethically sustainable.