By Ese Daniels
Residents in Uvwie in Delta State have resorted to boiling borehole water for drinking in place of buying packets of sachet water, popularly called ‘pure water’.
This resolve was triggered early in this week by the increased cost of pure water by distributors of the product.
Mrs. Glory Eno, a retailer of the product stated that she used to get six bags of pure water for a thousand Naira and she sells a bag for N250 but now, she got four bags for a thousand Naira and now she sells for N300.
”We used to make N500 profit when we sold for 250 but now we make only #200 profit Even after selling for #300 per bag,” she said.
Mr. Ojie Ikede, a staff of one of the pure water factories stated that the cost of materials used for packaging the water has been increased twice this year.
“We can’t sell as usual because we will run at a loss. It’s not our fault,” he said.
Mr. Ikede went further to state that patronage has dropped by almost 40% as whole sellers complained that consumers of the products are not buying as usual.
Two of our customers told me that people have started boiling water to drink as an alternative to spending so much on drinking water,” he stated.
Mrs. Elo Odafe, a resident in Uvwie confirmed the fact that she now boils her water for drinking, stating sarcastically that “water no be food adding “We should not spend so much on water.”
Residents in Uvwie are encouraging each other to boil their drinking water if they cannot afford pure water with emphasis that no one should drink borehole water without boiling for health reasons.
