BWB replaces 7 000 faulty meters
Blantyre Water Board (BWB) has replaced over 7 000 faulty meters after receiving complaints of inaccurate water bills and readings.
During a press briefing on Wednesday, BWB director of distribution and commerce Verson Kafodya said the exercise was conducted in two phases, with the first from June 20 2016 to June 30 2016 while the second one ran from July to September.
He said 4 127 faulty meters were replaced in phase one whereas about 3 000 were replaced during the second phase that encompassed both the board’s domestic, institutional and commercial customers in Blantyre City and its surrounding areas.
Said Kafodya: “We employed 57 temporary plumbers and each was paired with a sales agent [meter reader]. The meter readers were billing distribution and meter reading and also detecting faulty meters while the plumbers were replacing them with new ones.
“In the second phase, the plumbers were doing on their own without involving the sales agents as these had to do other assignments such as meter validation and debt collection.”
He said when a meter is faulty, a customer doesn’t get correct bills and sometimes they are not charged at all.
One customer, who had his meter replaced in Bangwe Township, said since the meter was replaced, he has noted a huge difference in his water bills.
“With the old meter, I was getting bills between K7 000 and K 8 000, but now the maximum is K4 000,” he said. n
