Willingness to Pay Subcatchment Councils Water Levies by Irrigators Within the Save Catchment Area, Zimbabwe

Abstract

The Water Act Chapter 20:24 of 1998 introduced the idea of ‘lowest appropriate authority’ in the planning, development and management of water resources in Zimbabwe through the establishment of Catchment and SubCatchment Councils. Non-payment or delayed payment of water levies by irrigators greatly undermine SubCatchment Councils’ capacity to sustainably, effectively and efficiently manage water resources. The aim of the study was to determine irrigators’ willingness to pay SubCatchment Council water levies and ascertain the factors affecting willingness to pay SubCatchment Councils water levies by irrigators within the Save Catchment area in Zimbabwe. The study used empirical data, obtained through cross-sectional surveys in four out of the eight SubCatchment Councils within the Save Catchment area. During the study a sample size of 214 irrigators out of a targeted population of 711 irrigators, were interviewed through simple random sampling as well as purposive and convenience sampling. Questionnaires, interviews and focus group discussions were used to gather primary data. The study findings revealed that 93.9% of the study participants had high awareness levels of the watershed management concept and 73.8% of the irrigators considered watersheds as primary sources of irrigation water supply. A high percentage of 84.11% of the irrigators were aware and concurred with the assertion that SubCatchment management was important in ensuring sustainable irrigation water supply. When irrigators were asked whether they were willing to continue paying the SubCatchment Councils water levies if they were to be given an option of paying or not paying, 88.8% indicated willingness to continue paying water levies at current rates and 63.9% to 76% of the irrigators were willing to pay more and varied amounts than what they were currently paying per mega litre of water used for irrigation purposes. The results showed that factors that significantly influence irrigators’ willingness to pay SubCatchment Councils water levies include irrigator’s farming category, age, education, marital status, income, family size, farm size, awareness level, water supply, cost of water, billing and revenue collection systems. The study recommends that SubCatchment Councils should intensify awareness campaigns, increases community watershed management projects, improve on monitoring and supervision of water uses, incentivise irrigators to make prompt payments, introduces punitive measures for defaulters, enhance and extensively digitalise the billing and revenue collection systems efficiency. At policy level there is need to have the different farmer categories charged differently unlike the current legislative provision which dictates the same water levies across all irrigator categories.