COUNCILLORS have called on Bulawayo City Council to install prepaid water meters to avert the challenge of an improper billing system which has seen residents receiving abnormally high water bills.
Ward 15 councillor Ashton Mhlanga said the city’s water billing system was flawed.
He said the system had led to residents getting bills that were unjustifiably astronomic.
“Implementation of prepaid water meters will help BCC to recover millions of dollars owed by residents, hence improving the service delivery as they would be able to receive funds unlike at the moment as one can continue using treated water without fully paying the bills,” he said.
Mhlanga said the move would force residents to desist from wasting treated water for activities such as watering gardens.
“First targeted areas for the implementation of prepaid water meters would be the industries and central business centre as they are the ones using a lot of treated water,” he said.
“This will help as it will make funds available for council and will make residents to rate the performance of management as currently they have been blaming lack of funds as their excuse for poor service delivery.”
He said the current billing system had failed to live up to its expectation as council has limited staff to conduct door-to-door meter reading, hence they estimate what residents would have used in a month, leading to the high bills.
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“The billing system has been troubling residents as almost monthly, they have to travel to council offices to fix high bills which they would have been charged due to the estimation made by the council,” he said.
Mhlanga said due to estimation, some residents experience charges ranging from US$100 to $200 in high-density suburbs.
“In the recently held budget consultation meeting in most wards, the residents have also called for the introduction of prepaid water meters because the current system is unsustainable as they are receiving high water bills every other month,” he said.
