BWB quietly effects 23% water tariff hike
Blantyre Water Board (BWB) quietly raised water tariffs by 23 percent effective July 1 this year after government approved its request for the increase, it has been established.
BWB public affairs officer Priscilla Mateyu, in a brief written response to a questionnaire, confirmed the tariff raise, saying: “We applied to government [Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development] for the hike and it approved a 23 percent rise effective July 1st [2016].”
The hike comes after the country’s five water boards—BWB, Northern Region Water Board (NRWB), Southern Region Water Board (SRWB), Central Region Water Board (CRWB) and Lilongwe Water Board (LWB)—increased the cost of water by between 10 percent and 45 percent in September 2015.
At that time, BWB effected 10 percent hike for domestic consumers and 15 percent for commercial customers whereas LWB increased by 45 percent and NRWB adjusted by 35 percent.
Mateyu could not provide the justification for the July 1 hike which, ironically, was not communicated to consumers.
Reacting to the hike in a telephone interview yesterday, Consumers Association of Malawi (Cama) executive director John Kapito wondered why government approved the new tariff when BWB is struggling to provide potable water to its clients.
He said: “This [tariff hike] is an insult and the board is making a fool of the consumers. What we want is water. Supply us [consumers] with water.”
Kapito, who is also board chairperson of SRWB, said it was ironic that BWB was increasing water prices when its services were poor.
He said: “In this case, what are they [BWB] raising the tariff for when they are denying us water?”
Although government has approved the hike, its minimum wage remains unrevised at K687.80 despite the tough economic conditions mostly for low income earners as the gap between the cost of living and what they get at the end of the month is too wide.
Yesterday morning BWB website www.bwb.mw still carried the old tariffs which showed a minimum charge of K1 591.04 for any consumption between 0 and 5 000 litres for domestic purposes and K6 563.83 as minimum charge for any consumption above 10 000 litres for institutions.
Later in the day, the website showed that the old charges had been removed and were followed by a notice to consumers that read: “Tariff data is currently unavailable online, please kindly visit any of our pay points for more info”.
In an interview yesterday, chairperson of a coalition of 10 water users associations in Blantyre, Shadrick Chabwera, described the hike as being on the higher side.
The hike at BWB has come at a time when NRWB has just implemented its new billing system which has seen some household bills doubling.
Government approved the new billing system in July.
