By A Correspondent- The Bulawayo City Council has gone on a recruitment drive for meter readers after it emerged that the city only has eight people doing the job which has resulted in most residential areas receiving estimated water bills.

A recent notice by town clerk Christopher Dube stated that the city was targeting to recruit 24 meter readers this month.

Dube said the 24 will be employed on a contract basis and will be required to capture water meter readings, and feed the input into a computerised system.

“Limitations of staff are because of staff on leave, the COVID-19 impact and that eight meter readers were available to read meters for the whole city, which has over 131 000 meters. This is against an establishment of 33 meter readers,” latest council minutes indicated.

Revelations were also that the whole billing cycle for the month of January 2021 was based on estimated readings.

“The estimation of bills coupled with the impact of water shedding will result in increased queries from consumers. This will also result in massive adjustments once the meters are read. An increase in adjustments will also affect the integrity of council’s final accounts,” the minutes said.