By MILDRED KATONGO –
THE National Water Supply and Sanitation Council (NWASCO) has put North-Western Water and Sewerage Company under special regulatory supervision for six months due to its glaring weak internal controls and deteriorating services.
NWASCO director Kelvin Chitumbo said this followed completion of the annual inspection by NWASCO during the period September 25-29 which revealed, among others, glaring weak internal controls and deteriorating services.
Mr Chitumbo said the preliminary findings dictated that detailed system audits be conducted to ensure the sustainability of the water company and the good reputation the utility had held so far was maintained.
“It is in light of the above that I hereby inform you that you are being placed under a special regulatory supervision for an initial period of six months, after which the status will be reviewed,” he said.
Mr Chitumbo said NWASCO would, therefore, proceed to prepare the special regulatory supervision contract which would be required to sign as a monitoring framework.
The NWASCO carries out annual inspections of the 11 commercial utilities and six private schemes.
Special regulatory supervision is imposed on providers when the performance and corporate governance issues in a commercial utility have deteriorated to unacceptable levels, which results in poor service delivery, and non-compliance to licence conditions which are threatening the sustainability of the water utility company.
Mr Chitumbo said the special regulatory supervision was an enforcement step, which was an alternative to suspending or cancelling the licence, which was normally drastic and had a severe impact on the operations of the company.