adminLovemore Zigara Midlands Correspondent
GWERU City Council is losing millions of dollars in potential revenue through leakages and illegal connections.
Engineer Praymore Mhlanga, council’s acting director for engineering services, said 70 percent of the city’s treated water is not being accounted for.
The local authority pumps an average of 40 to 45 Megalitres (ML) of water per day.
Council has blamed leakages, faulty meters and siphoning of water by residents carrying out construction work in the city’s suburbs.
Eng Mhlanga said council is mulling replacing faulty water meters and old water pipes as part of strategies to curb the problem.
“As council we are losing a lot of treated water which is mainly due to faulty meters and leakages caused by old water pipes that now need replacing.
“Construction activities especially in the residential areas whereby people are removing water meters and use the commodity illegally result in us billing people wrong bills,” he said.
Eng Mhlanga said council had partnered with the Germany Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) to replace faulty meters.
He said the first phase of the replacement of the meters would see the installation of 500 new meters in residential areas. Gweru has 27 000 households with water meters.
Said Eng Mhlanga:
“The 500 households that we are targeting are just a drop in the ocean. We are looking for more partners to come on board so that we can install as many meters as we can. We can curb the issue of people not paying for what they use.”
The engineering services acting director said council is mulling introducing prepaid meters as a long term solution to the challenges it is facing at the moment.
derick.khumalo