By Glory Msowoya
Blantyre, September 3, Mana: Barely few hours after Vice President Dr. Saulosi Chilima gave Blantyre Water Board (BWB) a 30 day ultimatum to fix ever-growing water crisis, the board has positively responded by fixing the challenge.
On Wednesday Dr. Chilima engaged BWB to among other things get clarity on what has led the water board to incur K8.9 billion loss as indicated in the 2019/20 financial year.
As posted on his official Facebook page, the Vice President demanded a clarity from BWB management on gains dropped or achieved reforms areas.
“I had requested for clarity on tangible gains on dropped/achieved reform areas; contradiction on non revenue water which has gone up from 37% in 2018/19 to 54 percent in 2019/20; reasons for non revenue water, reasons for loss of MK8.9 Billion for 2019/20; road map for the installation of pre-paid meters; and water situation in Blantyre”, reads part of the post.
Further to this Dr. Chilima gave management a deadline of up to 2nd October to end water crisis in the commercial city.
“We have resolved and greed that erratic water supply in Blantyre should be a thing of the past effective 2nd October, 2020. This means that we have given management 30 days to fix the problem and the Board has committed to implement this,” he said.
Meanwhile, in a statement made available to Malawi News Agency (MANA) signed by the management, apologetic BWB has responded by assuring its valued customers that it will rectify the problem.
Among other things the board advises customers that it has drawn several measures to ease the water problem.
“We have put in place measures to end technical hiccups including replacing of worn out pipes, improve on response time to faults by assigning care takers to designated areas”, reads the statement in part.
Furthermore, the board has also indicated that it has set up a special desk office to handle all complaints on water situation.
A Ndirande resident, Ruth Banda, has called on BWB to walk the talk saying dry taps force residents to search for unsafe water for survival.
“When we experience shortage of water in our locations we try as much as possible to find other alternatives means of having water in our homes and this forces us to fetch water from rivers which is too bad for our health,” Banda worries.
Most parts in Blantyre stay many days with dry taps forcing people to walk long distances in search of clean water.
