Blantyre Water Board is a parastatal organization established and reconstituted under the Malawi Water Works Act No. 17 of 1995 to supply potable water for commercial, industrial, institutional and domestic use in the supply area of Blantyre City and surrounding areas. Its mission is to provide reliable and affordable water supply services to customers whilst effectively contributing to the development of the national economy and sustenance of the environment. Currently, the Board is supplying water to about 1.4 million people within its supply area, which includes the City and other areas such as Bvumbwe, Chileka, Lunzu, Chiradzulu, Limbe and Mapanga.
BWB extracts its water from Shire River (an outlet of Lake Malawi) at Walker’s Ferry about 40 kilometres away and 800m below Blantyre City. As BWB’s main treatment plant, it currently produces 96 million litres per day, which is 95% of the total water production, with the rest being produced from Mudi dam and boreholes. After the completion of the new water source project from Likhubula in Mulanje, Walkers Ferry will then produce 79% of the total production. Mudi Dam currently produces 5 million litres and Likhubula source is expected to produce 20 million litres.
BWB has four broad categories of customers namely; domestic, industrial, institutional and commercial customers. Currently BWB has about 40,000 customers. BWB registers an average of 300 connections every month.