Lilongwe Water Board Losing K10 Billion Annually to Water Theft

By Moses Nyirenda

Lilongwe, Mana: Lilongwe Water Board (LWB) says it is striving to deal with the issue of non-revenue water that occurs due to illegal water connections.

The situation leads to the water provider losing close to MK10 billion annually.

Among other vices that LWB seeks to clear include theft of water pipes and vandalism of water supply equipment such as metres among others.

Speaking on the sidelines of a Fifth Joint Coordinating Committee (JCC) Meeting on Monday for the project which aims at Strengthening the Capacity of Non-Revenue Water Reduction for LWB, Chief Executive Officer, Sili Mbewe, said the institution is facing serious challenge of non-revenue water.

“As LWB, we are losing K10 billion every year due to non-revenue water and in terms of percentage, we are at least losing 42 per cent of water which we produce annually and this is a serious challenge to us,”Mbewe said.

He added that LWB is also working to rehabilitate old water-supplying pipes under the Lilongwe Water and Sanitation Project to reduce water losses that come due to leakages of old pipes.   

To address the challenge, the LWB CEO said his institution is currently working together with Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

“We are working together with our counterpart, JICA, towards dealing with the issue of non-revenue water as a key thematic area in our strategic plan.

“Our target is that in the next three years, we should reduce the percentages of water which we lose every year and we are looking forward to moving from 42 per cent to 25 per cent,” he said.

JICA’s Chief Representative in the country, Kazuhiro Tambara, said JICA is committed to supporting LWB in reducing non-revenue water.

“We are devoted to help LWB in dealing with non-revenue water. JICA will provide water experts to LWB who have a variety of expertise in dealing with problems of non-revenue water,” Tambara said.   

He also pledged JICA’s continued provision of equipment such as re-chlorination machines, PA systems and other machines to LWB aimed at rehabilitating old water distribution network that would improve water supply while facilitating the reduction of non-revenue water.

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