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Herald Reporter
The Harare City Council has approved the proposed Harare (Smart Water Meters) By-laws 2017 which will regulate the application, installation and use of smart water meters as the city braces to roll out 100 000 meters in western suburbs.

The city introduced smart water meters last year, but no legislation had been put in place to regulate their use.

According to recent minutes of the Environmental Management Committee acting chamber secretary Mr Charles Kandemiri told councillors that in drafting the proposed by-laws lessons were drawn from South Africa and Zesa.

“In terms of Section 4, consumers or ratepayers who have outstanding rates, water, and sewer and refuse collection bills at the time of installation of the water meters would have their debts reflected as a debit on the installed water meter,” reads the minutes.

“The debt would be deducted from the pre-payments at a percentage to be determined by council from time to time, but which shall not exceed 50 percent. Section 6 gives the consumer the responsibility over lost, stolen, damaged or tempered meters on their properties.”

Section 7 of the proposed by-laws provides that the smart water meters shall remain the property of council and the installation, repair and maintenance shall be done by council or its authorised agents only while Section 8 prescribes offences that arise from breaching any provisions of the by-laws and the penalties.

Mr Kandemiri said the by-laws have been long overdue in the council given that smart water meters were already in use at some properties.

Council is ready to seek ratepayer’s opinion on the matter. Finance director Mr Tendai Kwenda told stakeholders at a pre-budget meeting that the city was going to roll out 100 000 smart meters in the western suburbs which receive uninterrupted water supplies.

The installation of prepaid meters has been met with resistance from residents’ associations, but the city believes the pressure groups are not representative of the residents’ sentiments on the issue.

Government recently ordered local authorities to install pre-paid water meters to increase council revenues as local authorities are owed almost $1 billion by ratepayers.

The move is expected to improve the revenue of local authorities and in turn improve service delivery which has plummeted to unacceptable levels.

Urban Councils Association of Zimbabwe president, Harare mayor Bernard Manyenyeni said historical collection models have failed councils.