MCP in ‘illegal’ water connection, fined K106 million

Opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) has been implicated in illegal water connection which has forced service provider the Lilongwe Water Board (LWB) to disconnect water supply and slap the party with K106 million penalty.

LWB discovered the illegal connection at MCP headquarters in Lilongwe and subsequently disconnected water supply on Thursday November 24th, 2017.

According to LWB officials there were two water supply to the premise, one illegal and the other one legal.

However, the legal water supply was disconnected sometime back due to the party’s failure to settle a bill amounting to K6.8 million. The party has been failing to honor an agreement to settle the bill.

Instead the party has been using water illegally, and the illegal connection according to LWB has been there for the past 10 years until it was discovered last week.

Currently there is no water supply at MCP Headquarters.

However, MCP’s Deputy Secretary General; Eisenhower Mkaka, in a social media post, claimed the disconnection was based on faulty information saying MCP never did an illegal connection.

Wrote Mkaka: The board’s water connection was specially made at the premises. What they call “illegal connection” is the fire extinguishing system which the board itself connected at the place where there meter is. Only the hose reels were connected to this, more like a hydrant, so much so that whenever there was a disconnection all the taps were dry save the fire extinguishing system. The board has been seeing this whenever they came to take meter readings. We are surprised that what they did themselves and have been seeing all these years, they have chosen to call it “illegal connection”.

What we know about illegal connections is that they are hidden and kept away from the public eye, which was not the case in this particular case. We are yet to meet the board to understand their point of view.”

Mkaka went further to say that ‘as for the K6.8 million bill, the party had not been receiving bills.

When they sent us a disconnection notice, we went to the board to reach an agreement as to how we would settle this. As a matter of fact two weeks ago we paid K2 million (and we have the receipt) and we expected to pay K1.8 million in the coming week as the agreement we made with the board was that we should at least pay K3 million and finish the rest in chunks.’

Meanwhile, the Board has also reportedly fined both Pacific Group Properties and Manobec Limited- being commercial customers- K1.5 million each as infringement penalties.

Two weeks ago LWB disconnected water supply to Pacific Village and Central Medical Stores Trust after it was discovered the supply was illegally connected.

LWB, which is conducting Zero to Three Consumptions House to House Inspection Survey, discovered the illegal connections at Pacific Village which is owned by Pacific Group Properties in Area 9, and at Central Medical Stores Trust Warehouse in Area 6 owned by Manobec Limited.

Source: Mana