«Water integrity»

Promoting Integrity in Water Supply and Sanitation Service Provision

With high water demand and new installed water meters in Livingstone (which is the tourist capital in Zambia), corruption was the order of the day. Most staff resorted to collusion with the customers to do connections by-passing the water meters, illegal connections, tinkering with customer bills in the system, colluding with suppliers to inflate prices, and getting kick backs on reconnections and disconnections. The resultant effect was that the customer base was increasing but this did not result in the match on the revenues and also quality of supplies.

Contact: Gift Monde | Phone: +260 967868004 | Giftmonde2003(at)gmail.com | Southern Water and Sewerage Company Ltd.

Lessons Learnt

  1. There is resistance when tools used to curb corruption are introduced
  2. Corruption exists in the water sector going unnoticed
  3. There is the need to promote integrity activities in the system
  4. Corruption is a vice that goes with a complex matrix to be solved


  • Reduce corruption cases
  • Promote transparency and accountability

Project Description

After the GIZ WAVEplus training on the Water Integrity Manual in Germany, the acting director of the SWSC Gift Monde came up with the initiative of PACTIV (Political Will, Accountability, Capacity, Transparency, Transparent and Voice) in practice. He capitalised on the Republican President’s commitment to zero tolerance to corruption. He introduced an integrity box at customer centres. These boxes were for both customers and employees. They alert customers and employees that corruption is a vice that is not tolerated in the Company as part of the values.


  1. Number of corruption cases has reduced tremendously
  2. Employees are becoming more open to report corruption cases
  3. Water connections are being made on merit
  4. A platform for both customers and employees has been created


The Good Practice has led to significant short term results in fighting internal and external corruption. Since the practice was implemented with minimal costs, it is expected to continue being beneficial for the long term without any additional overhead. 

WAVE Impact

The initiative is a direct outcome of the GIZ WAVEplus trainings on Integrity in the Water Sector.