The Juba City Council has fined more than twenty water suppliers with of 500 pounds for violating an order issued last week.

Each of the suppliers has been fined 500 pounds for failing to comply with a list of water prices issued by the mayor.

The mayor reduced the prices from 25 pound per drum of clean water to 20.

Water fetched directly from the river would be sold at 10 pounds in places near to the source and 15 per drum in areas farther away.

“When the local order is out like this, it should be respected and there are law enforcement agencies that help in executing. On the first day on Monday we were able to confiscate 21 tankers who violated the order,” said the Deputy Director for public order in the municipality, Timon Wani.

Meanwhile, the Director of Urban Water Cooperation, Yar Paul Kuol, urged the water suppliers to supply clean water to residents, because there is enough of it to be distributed around the city.

“We have a seven thousands cubic meters of the South Sudan Urban Water Cooperation, we also have the SDI, it has opened a tanker filling station which is very huge. The water is cleaned according to the standards of the clean water in South Sudan, and WHO standards as well. Clean water is available,” argued Kuol.

Eye Radio could not reach the water suppliers for a comment.

But the prices rose after the devaluation of the pound in December last year, which led to a rise in fuel prices from six pounds per litter to 22.