Arusha water body rolls out prepaid metres

Arusha. Prepaid water metres have been rolled out in Arusha city to ease revenue collection and plug holes on persistent losses.

To date  345 units have been fixed at various public institutions, schools, health centres and homes within the city and its environs.

This was announced in the National Assembly in Dodoma yesterday by the minister for Water Juma Awesso when responding to a question.

Arusha Urban (CCM) MP Mrisho Mashaka Gambo had asked during a question and answer session as to when
the metres would be introduced in the fast-growing city.

The minister said the Arusha Urban Water Supply and Sanitation Authority (Auwsa) has already started to  fix the metres for various water consumers.

Prepaid metres, known as Luku, are also used by the Tanzania Electric Supply Company (Tanesco), a public utility, to bill the power consumers.

"The metres have been installed in various public and commercial premises and homes. To date 345 metres are in use," he told the Parliament.

Public institutions which already enjoy the service include the Police Force and living quarters for the police and the regional and district commissioners' offices.

Others are the regional offices of National Identification Authority (Nida), regional prisons offices and the government-run national museums within Arusha.

Other public places where the gadgets have been fixed include the ward offices, some health centres and dispensaries and primary and secondary schools.

Introduction of smart, prepaid water metre was announced in the middle of last year by the water authority in an effort to improve the revenue collection.

Until recently, Auwsa had to grapple with late payment of water bills and revenue loss due to the outdated postpayment water metering technology.

To address this, a study has designed and developed an intelligent GSM-based smart prepaid water meter with improved prepayment methods.

The prepaid water meter includes a custom user interface, water flow sensor, automatic token generator, and Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) application.

Customers can easily register; load their water credits using Airtel Money, TigoPesa, or Mpesa; and check their usage.
An LCD displays water usage information.

The technological interface enables the water utility (Auwsa) to monitor and manage the meter, which should help reduce revenue losses and improve overall efficiency.

Auwsa supplies water not only to the expanding  Arusha city but also to neighbouring Monduli, Arumeru and Longido districts, all within Arusha region.

It was the first autonomous water utility in the country set up around 2000, is implementing a multi-billion shilling project aimed to more than double the daily water supplies.

Among the major projects being implemented by the utility is a  $233.9 million (approximately Sh. 520 billion) financed by a soft loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB).

Under the mega project, a 335 kilometres of pipelines will be laid down while 56 boreholes will be drilled in various localities.

Upon completion, the project will more than double the water supply to Arusha city to 200 million litres a day from 44 million litres as was in 2020.

The current demand of water in the city and its suburbs extending to neighbouring districts is estimated to be 94 million litres.