CAMA implores on to treat customers with utmost professionalism following recent water scarcity in Blantyre

Consumer Association of Malawi (CAMA) is appealing to Water Boards customers to form Water User Groups in their communities to be used as a platform to demand better water delivery services.

CAMA has made this stance following recent water scarcity in Blantyre coming “at a time when water tariffs have just been increased and water consumers are expecting to see an improvement in water delivery services”.

CAMA Executive Director, John Kapito disclosed that they engaged with Water Boards across the country where it emphasized that “the consumer should be at the center of Water Boards operations and that they must change the way they handle and treat consumers”.

“We are also appealing to Blantyre Water Board to change their poor customer care service attitude and ensure that their main mandate is to supply water to residence of Blantyre. We expect to see water bowsers in all parts of Blantyre where there is scarcity of water immediately.”

CAMA observes that “it is disheartening and painful for Blantyre residents who continue to have no running water in their homes and some have to travel long distances to rivers and get unsafe and unhygienic water”.

“Blantyre Water Board has just signed a Service Level Agreement with consumers and we expected them to ensure adherence to such commitments.

“Blantyre Water Board has promised among the many commitments to attend to consumers’ complaints within 10 minutes at any customer service centre. It is sad that already the institution is unable to attend to any single complaint.

“Blantyre Water Board seems to think they are above Board and they have for a long time treated consumers as a bunch of worthless and ignorant people — which is unfortunate.”

Blantyre continues to have incessant dry past for the past few months, forcing many residents to include huge water reservoirs while many include such reservoirs in their budgets when constructing homes.

Last year, a decomposed body was discovered in a water chamber at Blantyre Water Board’s Chamber 79 situated in Ndirande-Malabada which was discovered when customers complained of was no water flow.

Despite an assurance from Blantyre Water Water that the water was not contaminated because of the corpse, Ndirande-Malabada residents were totally not convinced.

The deceased was reported to be BWB’s member of security team assigned for the Chamber 79, who has been missing three weeks prior to being discovered on March 26, 2020.

However, BWB was quick to assure customers that the incident did not result in any contamination of the water which they, saying it is disinfected with chlorine and tested before being distributed to customers.

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