4.4 Eagerness to pay for service charge

To further ascertain the household involvement in solid waste management, the resident's eagerness to pay more for waste services was assessed. Table 3 indicates the results of the eagerness-to-pay service charges. To improve the effectiveness of the house-to-house service, the respondents were ask on their willingness to-pay more. The result on this shows that a total of 21% of the people interviewed were willing to pay more for waste services. This was due to the fact that the respondents were not satisfied with the existing service quality. However, the majority (53%) of the respondents confirmed their eagerness to pay the existing tariff for the service rendered, whereas a total of 26% were eager to pay less than prevailing tariff. This group saw the service quality to be very poor and that, wanted an improvement in service quality levels before tariffs are increased. This finding support what many call the need for government to encourage the principle of polluter-pays which financially resource service providers in service delivery.

The result further indicated that, all the respondents were ready to pay any considerable tariff for the service if the service would be improved along frequent and routine waste collection of two times a week. It was again realized that the respondents wanted the tariffs to be charged on waste volumes and rate with which waste is being picked up. Regarding communal service, it came out from the study that all the respondents did not pay for services. However, over 65% from the survey were eager to pay for the tariff under one condition that service improves. The implication is that more effort should be geared toward educating the public and for that matter the customers to come to terms with the need to pay for services to recover cost to ensure better service quality. Moreover, the companies ought to be more responsive to complains of the customers so as to improve service quality.


#### Table 3.

Respondents' eagerness-to-pay user charges.
