Association of Manufacturers is demanding: suspend a decision to raise water tariffs

The Association of Manufacturers is demanding from the Water Authority to suspend a decision it recently made to raise water tariffs for factories by 51 agorot per cub, until a comprehensive discussion is held in which it will be given the opportunity to elaborate on the effect of the increase on the manufacturers.
Speaking to the Director General and the Chairman of the Water Authority, Giora Shaham, the Manufacturers Association welcomed how the authority decided to raise water tariffs for the industry. Manufacturers claim that, unlike the way water prices have been raised in the past, in this case water prices have risen sharply, without the authority reporting it in a June hearing, before raising tariffs.
The water authority's change mainly concerns the factories that are exempt from the payment of sewerage fees and receive services from water corporations. According to the Manufacturers Association, this change is of great economic significance and yet "it passed quietly and without reference to it at a hearing held by the Authority before raising tariffs."
According to the Manufacturers Association, the average price per cubic meter in manufacturing is NIS 8.2 and the average sewage rate per cubic meter in manufacturing is NIS 3.85. In addressing industrialists to the Water Authority, through the Associate's Law Firm, Polk, Matalon & Co., it was argued that the tariff increase while changing the method of calculation was done without reflecting this to the industrialists at the existing hearing and unfairness.