'Suspect Meter Readers'... Years of 'Water Meter Reading Omissions and Manipulations' Revealed

Cheorwon-gun Imposes 3 Years of Unbilled Charges on 1,200 Households... Police Investigation Requested

File photo [Asia Economy DB]

[Asia Economy Reporter Ra Young-cheol] It was recently revealed that water meter readers in Cheorwon, Gangwon Province, had arbitrarily manipulated or omitted water meter readings in their residential areas over several years, prompting the local government to request a police investigation into the matter.

According to Cheorwon County on the 23rd, during the first half of this year, discrepancies were found between the water meter readings and actual usage during the water supply modernization project, and after a thorough investigation, errors such as unmetered usage were confirmed.

The audit revealed that four meter readers had arbitrarily adjusted or failed to record water usage for 1,200 households in Dongsong, Galmal, and Cheorwon-eup.

The county requested an investigation by the Cheorwon Police Station to determine whether there was any misconduct during the billing and meter reading process.

Meanwhile, since the meter readers contracted by Cheorwon County had been working for about 7 to 10 years, it is difficult to specify the exact period of arbitrary adjustments and unmetered readings.

As a result, residents in the affected areas face the prospect of having to pay approximately 340 million won in omitted water charges over about three years from January 2019 (applying a three-year statute of limitations).

The county plans to finalize and impose the omitted charges after going through a resident objection process. The remaining omitted charges will be claimed as damages from the meter readers depending on the outcome of the police investigation.

Lee Seo-gu, Director of the Water and Sewage Business Office, said, "We apologize for the inconvenience caused to residents," adding, "We will minimize residents' inconvenience by individually visiting and explaining details such as installment payments for the omitted charges where errors occurred," and "We will inspect and improve the billing system to prevent such incidents from happening again."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.