BAUCHI – Bauchi State Water Corporation says it will procure 20,000 water meters to ensure equity in the consumption of water by customers in the state.
Mr Aminu Gital, the General Manager of the Corporation, disclosed this on Friday in Bauchi while speaking to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
“It is our priority and we are going to use the intervention being expected from the World Bank to procure about 20,000 meters, but in bits of 5,000 meters at a time.
“We don’t want to put all the meters at once because they have a life span of seven years and when that seven years lapse, then you have to replace them with new ones.
“So, the earlier ones we have bought, we are going to meter some selected consumers and then we will scale up from there,” Gital said.
He named pure water operators as some of the defaulters, but said that they would not be metered during the first phase of the exercise.
“Because you don’t meter everybody at the same time, you normally go for the difficult ones or those you think are consuming more.
“We have the rate per cubic meter and when our meter reads five cubic meters, we multiply it with the rate.
“But their rate is different from others, let say if you are in a household and you are paying N500, definitely there is no how they can pay less than N5, 000,” Gital said.
He said that some consumers would be under the priority list because they consumed more.
Gital said that currently most consumers in the state were being charged between N500, N750 or N1, 000 except those that were suspected to be consuming more than usual.
He said that the corporation did not have a special billing method for consumers involved in laundry and other small enterprises.
Gital said that the corporation was charging some few ones involved in such venture along Bauchi to Gubi Dam a little bit higher when the corporation had incessant problem of vandalised pipelines.
“We decided to engage them and we erected a public tap for them and charge them a monthly rate of N2,000.
“We did it as a strategy to prevent people damaging our pipelines as we don’t conduct 24-hour surveillance on our pipes.
“Within the town, we have public taps, but those ones are to be paid for by the local government councils, but unfortunately, the councils have not been paying for some times now,” he said. (NAN)
Bauchi State Water Corporation to buy 20,000 water meters
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