General info
Maji Milele is a distributor of a wide variety of high quality prepaid water meters. We have prepaid water meters for communal water points, for domestic connections (also with AMR/AMI) and for purified water ATMs. All prepaid water meters are linked to mobile payment and come with an online monitoring system for tracking daily payments and water consumption. Online monitoring also helps to detect leakages and illegal connections and greatly  reduces non-revenue water.

We supply prepaid water meters from 3 different suppliers in the world, each with different  features and advantages. Our premium supplier for prepaid communal meters is Susteq in the Netherlands, but we also sell similar meters from Iniative (India) and prepaid meters for individual connections from Laison (China).

Prepaid communal water meters come with 1 tap, 2 taps or 3 taps. The picture above has 3 taps. The third tap is hidden behind the scarf of the lady. Pepaid communal water meters can be used for hand pumps, water kiosks  and stand pipes. The meter has many functionalities, like for example it works with flat tariffs as well as with variable tariffs, a maximum consumption per user can be defined. This is an alternative for water rationing in times of water scarcity. The meter moreover sends SMS messages to the water supplier in case of technical problems.

Prepaid meters for individual connections (0.5-10 inch) work just like prepaid electricity meters. Users top up by mobile money; the user gets a 20-digits code on his phone, which can then be inputted to the meter (see picture at left below). When the user is almost out of water, he will get 2 alerts, but if he then doesn’t top up in time, the valve will automatically close. For water service providers this means: no need for water meter reading; no need for sending bills and no need to disconnect people/institutions that don’t pay. They actually disconnect themselves and can reconnect again by paying via Mpesa.

Prepaid communal water meters can also be used for purified water ATMs (picture at the right above) that can sell purified water at a price of about 20% of bottled water, while still giving good profits.to the local entrepreneur. Interested to set up you own Purified Water ATM? Call us.

Main advantages of prepaid water meters

• no cash money involved – mobile payment
• 100% online transparency
• reduction of non-revenue water to near less than 10% (average in Kenya is 40% in urban areas and about 70% in rural areas
• no kiosk operators
• 24/7 service
•        no queuing

New features of prepaid water meters 

• option of capping water consumption per day/week/month, which is an alternative for water rationing, a bad practise that is increasingly needed in parts of Africa that are affected by droughts and climate change.
• variable pricing option: this enables smart pricing, for example to provide access to water for the ultra-poor at reduced rates (progressive pricing structure) or the other way around: it allows purified water companies to make more profits by setting prices that mirror the prices of bottled water (regressive pricing structure).
• Mobile payment, now also for prepaid water meters for communal usage.