Mutare to plug water leakages

Rumbidzayi Zinyuke Manicaland Bureau
MUTARE City Council has proposed a $41 million budget for 2019, up from the $28 million budgeted for the current year, as the local authority seeks to curb non-revenue water losses that have haunted it for years. Council has been losing 68 percent of treated water to burst pipes and leakages resulting in millions of dollars worth of revenue being lost.

Mutare City acting finance director Mrs Tsitsi Useya said the 2019 budget sought to address this and other issues that were restricting the local authority from improving service delivery to residents.

“The greater chunk of our budget is skewed towards curbing non-revenue water. We are looking forward to implementing the Geographic Information System (GIS) so that we are able to capture and monitor all council properties, water and sewer connections. This way we will be able to bill all properties in the city thus increase our revenue base,” she said.

Mrs Useya said council was targeting $900 000 from water alone should they be able to bill all properties that are not yet captured in the system.

The GIS project was mooted last year following a meeting between Government and all local authorities where it was agreed that municipalities should implement the system for improved revenue collection. Kariba, Bulawayo and Gweru carried out the pilot project assisted by GIZ.

GIS creates an intuitive water and sewer asset register, which assists in conducting a consumer meter audit.

It can also perform asset recognition, condition assessment and valuation, allowing customers to self-serve, delivering an improved customer experience, whilst reducing the utility company’s costs to serve.

Mrs Useya said out of the $41 million, external funds from Government, Zinara and the Public Service Investment Programme contributed $7,9 million.

The remaining $33 million was expected to be funded from council revenue collection efforts.

Mrs Useya said the local authority was facing challenges in accessing foreign currency to implement planned projects.

“The forex issue is a problem for us,” she said. “But when we did our budget, we used the US dollar as the base currency and we did not factor in the inflation and the price madness that started in October.”