London, Aug 19: Germany might be a fairly rainy and wet place, but water in the country is more expensive than anywhere else on the planet, according to a new survey.

At 1.50 pounds per 1000 litres, prices are four times as much as in America, and twice as much as in parched Australia. Britons on average pay 1.18 pounds for the same amount, a little less than the Belgians. "We have masses of water. It's just that the water companies let everything leak into the rivers. Germans are being ripped off because our politicians are useless. Everything has been run wrong for 20 years," the Telegraph quoted one reader, as stating in Die Welt newspaper.

The survey was produced by energy consultants NUS, which monitors electricity, gas, oil and water prices every quarter.

Bruce Blazey, senior energy analyst at NUS, said that British customers still have a lot to complain about. "In the UK it seems to be constantly raining and yet the reservoirs seem to dry out so quickly. You have towns flooded the whole time and yet hosepipe bans are in force," he said.

"There's just not enough being spent on infrastructure, and the pipelines are just really bad. Thames Water is dreadful. They blame it on the wartime damage - that nothing's been really properly repaired since the 1940s," he added.

NUS puts high water prices in Germany down to the fact that rates are controlled at local level, with cities keen to cash in on water to fund other projects.