Southern Region Water Board ( SRWB) says it is committed to investing in infrastructure through improved financial performance.
Acting Chief Executive Officer ( CEO) of SRWB Mr Chimbamba said this during an engagement meeting with different stakeholders aimed at proposing for an increase in tarrifs.
According to Chimbamba, their mission is to provide water to customers through designing, constructing, operating and maintaining water supply systems.
“Our tarrifs were last reviewed in the 2018/2019 financial year but the cost of production and supply on the hand has been increasing,” He said.
He added that the increase in the cost of production has negatively impacted the performance and operations of the board.
“Current water pricing by SRWB is significantly low, for the basic commodity, it is the cheapest in Malawi,” he explained.
He also said that the cars the board is using were bought in 2017 and promised that the increase in tarrifs will enable them to be providing water to their customers 18 hours minimum per day.
Finally the SRWB want to expand their distribution network up to 500 KM inorder to connect with new customers targeting Mangochi- Monkeybay , Namwera, Liwonde- Balaka, Machinga, Zomba- Domasi, Ku-chase, Namadzi, Chiradzuru, Mulanje and Ngabu.
Currently, to individuals, 0-4 M3 of Water ( Tariff in MK) is 1,349.60, Tariff Per M3 ( MK) 1000 Litres is 337.40, Number of drums for 4M3 ( 4000 L) is 20 and 67.48 for 200 L Tariff per drum in Malawi Kwacha and Tariff per 20 L pail in Kwacha is 6.75.
The Increased tariff to individual per drum ( MK) 101.22 while per pail will be at 10.12 and on KIOKS per drum will be 32.61 in Kwacha and per pail will be 3.26.
“5 drums of 200 litres of water is going at less than MK400, while a bottled water of 500ml is going at K500 but people will only complain of water from the boards, he wondered.