NEWS | Wednesday, 04 March 2009

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Karl Schembri
The Water Services Corporation is estimated to have lost up to 7.56 million cubic metres of water in 2007, or 23% of the total amount of water generated in that year.
A National Audit Office report presented in Parliament shows that the state-owned water provider on the islands had real losses amounting to over 18% of its total water inputted into the system, or 5.6 million cubic metres, while apparent losses totalled around 23%.
Real losses are calculated on the physical water losses from the distribution system to the point of customer metering.
Apparent losses are calculated from the amounts of water that is consumed but not properly measured, paid for or accounted for.
The auditor general’s report called The Performance Audit on Water Loss Control Management by the WSC, finds that on the whole and on the basis of available statistics, the WSC has managed to reduce water losses.
Yet the auditor’s office notes that with the cost of water production, the corporation needs to intensify its efforts to reduce further the water losses to a level that is considered as unavoidable.
“Through various initiatives over the years, the WSC has significantly reduced real losses mainly as a result of significant capital investment in the water distribution system,” the audit report notes.
The management of real losses is gauged according to what is known as the Infrastructure Leakage Index (ILI), with 1.0 indicating a successful leakage management policy and higher values indicating failure in that regard.
It emerges that while Gozo has kept a stable leakage benchmark of 1.5 over the last years, zones in Malta have varied from 5.0 in 2004 to 2.97 in 2008. The corporation says it wants to attain an ILI 0f 2.0 by the end of this year.
As regards apparent losses, the cause of which is mostly unaccountable, the corporation blames mostly the customer meters and the under-registration of consumption.
“All meters of the mechanical type suffer from a reduction in performance over time,” the audit report explains.
In 2008, a WSC internal study concluded that the Corporation is not billing nearly 16% of water consumption due to meter inaccuracies.
“Such a problem is mainly caused by meters which are aged 10 years and over, of which there are over 51% of the total meters installed.”
The corporation has recently announced it will be making substantial investment in modern meters that will make meter reading more efficient and reliable.
Water theft is another factor contributing to apparent losses – an issue which has not been given “the very high priority it deserves”.
The audit report suggests adopting an economic leak intervention model to help in the prioritisation of infrastructural works, maintenance and repairs, and to tackle water theft more aggressively.

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