BEITBRIDGE Town Council has expressed concern over non-revenue water losses due to leakages saying this is inflating its bill to the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa).
Town clerk Loud Ramakgapola told Southern Eye that the local authority was losing up to 40% of treated water to leakages.
“You will realise that almost half of the water that we get is lost. I have put up a team to try and investigate the water losses and report to us their findings as to where these losses are coming from. Generally, as a council we are trying to ensure that everyone gets water," Ramakgapola said.
"Zinwa is billing us over ZWL$300 million a month which means whatever it is billing us we are only able to pay half of that amount and part of the water that we get almost half of it is lost before it reaches the community.”
In November, Beitbridge municipality was forced to introduce a four-day water-shedding regime after Zinwa restricted supplies over an outstanding debt.
The municipality owes Zinwa over ZWL$1,7 billion for water supplies.
“We have a Zinwa debt that has been there for quite some time,” Ramakgapola said.
“We are trying as much as possible to pay them, at least for now we are paying them ZWL$40 million per week and as we get more inflows we will up that figure.”
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Beitbridge is owed an estimated ZWL$2,5 billion by residents.
