City Hall to digitise water meter reading

The Nairobi county government will now put in place systems to digitise the reading of water meters for city residents in a bid to seal loopholes that deny the Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company Limited (NWSC) more than half of its revenue.

Members of the County Assembly (MCAs) on Wednesday unanimously passed a Motion that compels the county administration to install the system.

Clay City MCA Samora Mwaura indicated that digitisation will streamline the activities of the water company.

“Digitisation will ensure that if the company loses revenue they will be eager to see why there is no water in an estate. In the process they will end up fighting the cartels to ensure residents have water,” Mr Mwaura said.

He also indicated that digitisation will ensure city residents only pay for what they consume.

“Clients will have to pay for what they consume. If you do not pay, you do not get water. We know there are some cahoots who have been working with some employees in the water sewerage company to cause artificial water shortage,” he added.

Company loses half of its revenue

The passing of the Motion comes amid revelations by the Auditor General that the company loses half of its revenue from the water supplies that it gives to city residents.

In an audit report for the financial year ended June 2020, Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu said the company lost billions of shillings through unbilled water supplies.

The report indicated that the company produced 176.04 million cubic meters of water but only 86.35 million cubic meters were paid for by the city residents.

This means that more than half of the water supplied could not be accounted for leading to the loss of Sh4.75 billion in revenue.

In August, the company also announced the installation of 10,000 new water meters in a bid to seal the revenue loopholes.