By CHUSA SICHONE –
THE Government has secured a US$150 million loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB) to strengthen the performance of three ‘weaker’ water commercial utility (CU) companies in the country.
The National Water Supply and Sanitation Council (NWASCO) has to that effect signed Recovery Plan agreements with the three utility firms: Luapula Water and Sewerage Company, Western Water and Sewerage Company and Chambeshi Water and Sewerage Company.
Speaking at the signing ceremony in Lusaka on Wednesday, NWASCO managing director Kelvin Chitumbo said a number of performance indicators of the three CUs had been agreed upon and that the Recovery Plans would be reviewed every six months and the indicators would be adjusted accordingly.
“Out of the realisation that we have got CUs that are at different levels in terms of performance and capacities, we think we need to have a bit of some focus on the three weaker CUs.
“Government has secured a loan through the African Development Bank and we think that investment needs to be secured by also trying to improve capacities within the utilities in terms of performance, so we have gone into an agreement with the three utilities, what we are calling a Recovery Plan,” he said.
Mr Chitumbo said each utility company had been allocated an average of
$50 million and that the funds would be used to improve the companies’ performance by having a focused inspection and monitoring from NWASCO.
Mr Chitumbo said NWASCO had identified the three CUs of not having the ‘muscle’ in terms of customer connections and were operating from remote areas, and that they at times struggled to meet their operational and maintenance costs.