by Dideka Njemla
The Makana Municipality smart water meters project rollout has begun in certain wards around Makhanda in an attempt to stabilise water supply and minimise water loss. According to the municipality earlier this year, a few of their representatives engaged with residents from wards 4 and 8 where the rollout was scheduled to start.
Speaking to Grocott’s Mail, Makana’s Citizen Front Proportional Representation councillor Philip Machanick said that although he did attend the public engagement meeting that was held at the City Hall he gained more information about this matter talking with the contractors installing the meters. “The big issue here is that the public participation and communication is very weak. We know very little about this directly from the municipal sources and we shouldn’t have to find these things out by talking to the installers on the streets.
“First of all, the meters have – apparently – the capability to send the meter reading into the municipality and we were led to believe that is how they would work. But they also have the capability to be set up as prepaid. Now it would seem that the meters are in fact all being installed as prepaid and when the meter is installed, the installers are meant to get a reading of your old meter and put on free credit to get you started with 4000 litres.
“I have not seen particulars of how you are meant to buy the extra credits after to top up your meters. I presume it’s the same way prepaid electricity meters get topped up. But they [contractors]also give you a separate keypad which will have some wireless link to the physical meter so that you can top up your meter.
“Those registered as indigent will get a free monthly allowance, and it will work the same way as with prepaid electricity. At the start of each month, the meter will put on an addition to whatever is already there.”
Machanick said contrary what has been said by the Municipality, homeowners are not being contacted prior to the installation process. “The appalling public communication is that nothing seems to be done the way the council said it would be done. There’s no significant public participation involved in the decisions to install these meters, so we are monitoring this and hope this is not going to turn out to be a big negative development.”
