Mulonga Water owed K100m by its customers

…service delivery affectedBy ALICE NACHILEMBE
Mulonga Water Supply and Sanitation is owed K100 million by its 55, 000 customers, the company has said.Mulonga Water Acting Managing Director Reuben Kaira said less than half of its 55,000 customers pay bills thereby accruing colosal debts of up toK100 million in unpaid water and sewerage bills.Speaking in an interview to mark the World Water Day which falls today March 22, Mr Kaira said less customers pay for the services that they receive.He said the trend is threatening the performance and sustainability of the company operations.Mr Kaira said the company needs resources to adequately provide quality and consistent services to customers in Chingola, Mufulira and Chililabombwe.He said improvement plans are being thwarted by lack of resources because very few customers are fulfilling their obligations.“A good number of our customers owe Mulonga Water substantial amounts collectively and I urge them to start liquidating these amounts which currently stand at over k100 million.”Mulonga Water is humbly reminding customers who owe the company in unpaid bills for water and sanitation that every time they observe a drop in the quality of services, they should know that they are part of the negative pull,” he said.Mr Kaira said customers’ attitude towards settling bills has a direct impact on the quality of services.”If customers pay consistently the service levels improve and vice versa. The company’s strategic focus for 2020, is to be a financially sound organization and this will only be possible with full cooperation from stakeholders by way of settling their bills on time.“Mulonga has introduced customer engagements in an effort to bring on board the more than half of the customer base who do not pay for services. The company’s strategic focus for the year 2019 was to be “customer centric” by introducing a customer contact centre, new meter reading application, leak repair teams and purchase of equipment, amongst other innovations,”He said the aforementioned efforts have greatly improved the company’s response to customer complaints, though there still some gaps when it comes to response time.Mr Kaira said despite the gaps, the indications were that the company is on the right path.