It has pleased Blantyre Water Board (BWB) to award a contract worth over 480 million kwacha to a company, Creck Hardware, which recently supplied it with malfunctioning prepaid billing meters which the board is currently recalling.

At the moment, BWB is recalling the meters because, according to the Board, they are faulty and are costing the water supplier billions of kwacha in lost revenue, which is hitting further the already cash-strapped water utility which has been forking out its begging bowl to Treasury for a bail out.

In a twist of events and a case of rewarding bad service, the same Board has awarded Creck Hardware and General Supplies belonging to flamboyant Apostle Clifford Kawinga a contract amounting to K487 million to supply ranger couplings. In simple terms, there are fixtures for joining pipes.

The award notice came out in the Nation newspaper inside the week.

Blantyre Water Board has been in the news in the past weeks crying that the faulty prepaid billing meters have been costing it millions of kwacha in lost revenue.

In a statement in January 2024, the Board said the meters it is recalling are making it impossible for it to detect a number of things in its billing system. The batteries of the gadgets are malfunctioning and that the meters are not sending any messages to the board’s main generation centre for its tracking for billing purposes.

Sources at the Board says the board has not made a decision to penalize Creck Hardware and General Supplies for supplying poor quality materials. However, what is not a secret is that the board has decided to thank Creck for its bad job with a new contract.

As of now, BWB is replacing the faulty prepaid metres with postpaid meters.

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