Blantyre Water Boards bemoans loss of water through burst pipes and leakages

Blantyre Water Board (BWB) has bemoaned the loss of unaccounted for water and high energy costs when distributing water to its customers among other issues.

BWB Distribution Manager, Booker Waya, made the remarks on Tuesday on the sidelines of Water for People review forum saying the board is losing 50 percent of the water it pumps from Walkers Ferry due to leakages as well as burst pipes every day.

“Half of the water we produce is not part of our revenue due to leakages resulting from old pipes and we cannot identify where it is going.

“Additionally, the meters we are using are very old such that they are not accurate enough to measure the water that is passing through the meters and through that, we are losing a lot of revenue,” he said.

Waya said BWB is incurring high energy costs due to the pumping a lot of water which in return is not giving them enough revenue.

He pointed out that as one way of rectifying the loss of water problem, the board intends to replace old pipes as well as replace old meters which are not working properly.

“So far we have replaced 20 kilometres of old pipelines with new ones and we plan to replace another 50 kilometres in this new financial year between June 2017 and July 2018. The board is also going to replace old meters which are currently being registered.

“We have also managed to install 3, 000 prepaid meters and this year, we are going to buy 10,000 more so as to minimise billing queries,” Waya explained.

Asked to comment on Naperi residents complaining about the high water bills being incurred after being connected with prepaid water meters, the Distribution Manager said there was a problem with the meters which were previously installed but the new meters are working properly.

“Interestingly, most complaints are just from Naperi area while the new prepaid meters were installed in Nkolokosa, Chitawira and Chinyonga but what happened is that the old prepaid meters installed at Naperi were not functioning properly. They were undercharging and delayed in cutting once the money entered is over so with the installation of new prepaid meters in the area which are working efficiently, customers feel like they are being overcharged which is not the case,” he clarified

Waya urged customers to be mindful of leakages that take place after the meter since this water is accounted for on their bills hence some of the billing complaints

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