Lilongwe Water Board keen to curb illegal water connections

Lilongwe Water Board (LWB) has intensified its quest to curb illegal water connections among customers within the city in order to improve on its service delivery.

LWB Assistant Public Relations Officer, Maurice Nkawihe said this in an interview on the progress made so far in line to illegal water connections.

He said LWB has step up efforts to stump out illegal water connections among residents of Lilongwe City; it has so far managed to handle over 110 for the past seven months.

“A total of K745 million has been charged on culprits as fines as a result of cases of illegal water connections between July, 2018 and January, 2019,” Nkawihe stated.

He pointed out that this has come out as a result of tip-offs some concerned citizens are providing to the Board, owing to the rate of illegal water connections among residents.

The Assistant Public Relations Officer added that LWB has introduced an initiative of rewarding any informant regarding illegal water connections within their neighbourhoods.

“We have rewards for informants ranging from K50, 000.00 to K150, 000.00 depending on the gravity of the case one reports to LWB,” Nkawihe clarified.

He assures informants that their disclosureto the Board would be treated with utmost confidentiality to avoid causing enmity among residents within their locality.

The Board has registered more cases of illegal water connections in Areas 23, 25, 36 and 49 where there are lot of house constructions taking place.

“We are working around the clock to curb the situation and bring to book all the perpetrators,” Nkawihe told Mana.

LWB has a 24-hour Call-Centre which people can use to report illegal water connections, leaks or pipe bursts. Call-Centre number is 253.

A Biwi dweller, Christopher Matola said the issues of illegal water connections are real but the culture of silence is aggravating the situation inmost parts of the City.

“I believe if there is an effective way to set up a mechanism on how one can easily detect an illegal water connection among residents, the cases will drastically come down,” he believed.

Matola added that, “I think LWB needs to do a lot of sensitization so that residents should appreciate the negativeeffects of illegal water connections to them. They need to spell out clearly on how residentswould effectively report the cases without being reprimanded in the end.”

An Area 25 business-lady, Margaret Chikuse commended LWB for coming up with rewarding packages for the informants saying this would encourage more people to be on the lookout for perpetrators within their vicinity.

Water loss through illegal connections per month is estimated at 25,000 cubic meters for which are almost one percent of the monthly water production by LWB.

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