By Moses Nyirenda
Lilongwe, February 21, Mana: Ministry of Water and Sanitation Principal Secretary, Elias Chimlambe, has advised water boards in the country to scale up their efforts to reduce non-revenue water that occurs due to theft of water supply equipment, pipe bursts and leakages.
He made the remarks in Lilongwe on Wednesday during Project for Strengthening the Capacity of Non-Revenue Water Reduction for Lilongwe Water Board (LiSCap) 10th Joint Coordinating Committee (JCC) meeting.
The meeting was organized by Lilongwe Water Board (LWB) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
Chimlambe said non-revenue water remains a challenge among water boards in the country hence the need to put an extra gear in a quest to address the challenge.
“Non-revenue water is still a big challenge among water utility companies in Malawi hence the need to put more effort to fight the challenge,” Chimlambe said.
He added that combating non-revenue water would help improve supply of potable water to the public by which would assist achieving one of the key priorities in the Malawi 2063 on increased availability of potable water in the country.
He, therefore, hailed LWB for its commitment to addressing non-revenue water through LiSCap project implemented with support from JICA since 2019.
He urged other water boards in the country to emulate LWB’s example if they are to address non-revenue water challenge.
LWB Chief Executive Officer, Silli Mbewe, said through LiSCap project the Board has made positive strides in reducing non-revenue water.
“We have made significant strides in this journey with the project now scheduled to come to completion in December 2024. In the last JCC we reported around 40 percent decrease in non-revenue water but now we have reported 38 percent decrease.
“It is just two percent movement but quite significant in as far as the war against non-revenue water is concerned. If you quantify the two percent it is translating to a saving of two million litres which translates to K400 million saved,” he said.
JICA Chief Representative, Kazuhiro Tambara, said JICA is committed to provide more support to LWB to sustain reducing non-revenue water.
