Our View: Farmers’ water fees must be suspended for this year at least

Political parties are often guilty of adopting populist positions, and we are certain to see this practice more frequently now that we are just a few months away from parliamentary elections. The call on the government a couple of days ago to temporarily suspend the payment of charges for the use of boreholes by farmers could easily be seen as another example of this, but it is not.

It is much more a case of poor planning by the authorities which now expect farmers to pay the annual...