Engineer Luke Dette and Acting Chief Executive Officer,  Mercy Phiri said they spend K1.3 billion per month to pay Escom and other huge sums of money to buy chemicals to treat water.

"The massive siltation in Shire river is making us to use a lot of money to buy chemicals. As we speak, we spend K1,500 to produce one cubic meter of safe water yet we sell it at a minimum of 760 to consumers," said Engineer Dette.

On her part, Phiri said plans are under way to establish a solar power plant that will assist them  to produce 30 megawatts and manage to pump water from walker's ferry to the commercial city.

"We also intend to come up with a new water plant that will enable us to produce 230,000 cubic meters from the current 96,000," explained Phiri.

However, a consumer, Geoffrey Kagwa from Chirimba township has asked the board to scale up the installation of prepaid water meters in order to overcome the burden of exorbitant bills.

The sentiments were made on Saturday when BWB  took some residents  to appreciate how the board processes and pumps water from Walkers Ferry in Shire river, Neno side to Blantyre City.