The South African Water Meter Manufacturers’ Association (WMMA) has cautioned municipalities and water utilities about the ‘questionable quality and sub-standard performance’ of some water meters reportedly being introduced to the local market.

Association chairman, Friedrich Draxl, said in a statement that the industry has been receiving complaints from users about the performance of some imported products. The statement further included: “It appears that some utilities and municipalities are unknowingly and innocently installing meters of questionable quality, with no proven performance records, which are delivering inaccurate water consumption readings. This is resulting in inaccurate billing, and in the end it’s the ratepayer who is being penalised.

“There are minimum legally prescribed metrological standards which must be complied with, but meters are being installed which do not conform,” said Draxl.

The WMMA, established primarily as a customer watchdog body to ensure that meters conform to legal metrology standards, also monitors service levels and quality issues. It is made up of representatives from six leading local and international meter manufacturers and acts as official spokesman for the water meter industry. It coordinates its activities with the SA Bureau of Standards (SABS), the SA National Accreditation System (SANAS) and the National Regulator for Compulsory Standards (NRCS).

“These bodies use the WMMA as a coordinated sounding-board on user issues,” said Draxl, an independent chairman not connected to any of the association’s member companies. “It is not our intention to prescribe to users as to what brand of meter they should install, but it is our duty as a consumer watchdog to express our concern when we see problems arising, as we do now.

“The association’s advice to users is to check that meters offered have been tested and approved by the NRCS and to further check whether the meters have been verified in an approved South African flow laboratory, as is required by law.”

The statement further included that SANAS recently held an International Accreditation Forum day, with the primary objective of coordinating standards worldwide in order to ‘lock in quality’ and ‘lock out inferior products’’, and stated that the WMMA fully supports this initiative.