By Timothy Peter

Dedza, November 27, Mana: Central Region Water Board (CRWB) says it was losing a lot of money due to theft of water meters in Dedza, a development the board says was affecting a lot of households in accessing safe and potable water in the district.

The Board’s Public Relations Officer (PRO), Zefelino Mitumba, revealed this on Tuesday during a stakeholder’s consultation meeting held at Mountain View Lodge in the district.

In an interview with Malawi News Agency (MANA), he said 98 water meters were stolen in 2023 and 35 water meters were stolen in 2024.

Mitumba stated that one meter costs about K 90, 000 to 150,000 adding the board has lost a maximum of K 20 million in replacing the stolen water meters within the last two years.

"There is a lot of meter theft in the district mainly around Dedza Town. The trend does not seem to be dying and the loss of meters is crippling service delivery each passing day at the same time affecting collection of revenue," he said.

According to Mitumba, other challenges that the institution meets in its pursuit of providing clean water to Dedza residents include unpaid water bills and deforestation which all contribute to the current persistent water crisis in the district.

He said the aim of the consultation meeting was to allow stakeholders come up with a Water Users Committee to help in providing civic education to residents about their role in taking care of CRWB property.

"The water-users committe will act as a bridge between the service provider (the board) and the service recipient (water users). We have huge expectations from the committee to help customers that we serve so that they become responsible customers," Mitumba said.

Chairperson for the new committee, Said Bout promised to take a step in dealing with some of the challenges that have worsened the water situation in the district.

“As a measure to water meter theft, our committee has since resolved that the responsibility of replacing the stolen meters is now with the recipients of the commodity as opposed to the previous years where CRWB was taking full control,” he emphasized.

The stakeholders meeting brought together Group village heads around Dedza Boma and a community member representing each village.