HiLCoE

School of Computer Science and Technology

IT Research Methods (CS481)

Research Proposal on Web-based Utility Billing System for Addis

Ababa Water and Sewerage Authority

Submitted to: Tibebe Beshah (Ph.D.)

Prepared by:
Debis Amenu
Elshaday Zerabruk
Natnael Alemayehu
Nebiyou Ermiyas
Tsion Meka
Zelalem Temesgen

August 17, 2021 G.C.

Table of Contents

Acronyms .............................................................................................................................. 1

1. Background .................................................................................................................... 2

2. Problem Statement......................................................................................................... 3

3. Objectives of the project ................................................................................................ 4

3.1. General objective .................................................................................................... 4

3.2. Specific objectives ................................................................................................... 4

4. Methodology .................................................................................................................. 5

4.1. General approach ................................................................................................... 5

4.2. Detail procedures .................................................................................................... 5

4.3. Tools and techniques .............................................................................................. 5

5. Literature review ............................................................................................................ 6

5.1. Public utility ............................................................................................................. 6

5.2. Billing system ........................................................................................................... 6

5.2.1. Review of water billing systems .................................................................... 7

5.3. Utility billing system of AAWSA ........................................................................... 8

6. Scope and limitations of the research ........................................................................ 9

7. Significance of the research ...................................................................................... 10

8. Time plan ................................................................................................................... 10

9. Budget plan ................................................................................................................ 11

10. References .................................................................................................................. 12

Acronyms

AAWSA: Addis Ababa Water and Sewerage Authority

EEPCO: Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation
UBS: Unified Billing System
MICT: Ministry of Information Communication Technology
CBE: Commercial Bank of Ethiopia

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1. Background

Customer satisfaction can be used to evaluate and enhance the performance of an

organization as a measure of quality of goods and services as expected by customers who
consumed them. Service quality, effective service delivery and efficient complaints
handling are among the indicators of customer satisfaction for governmental organizations.
Nowadays, customers do not simply demand for quality, but they also demand for speed.
So, the objective of every organization is to serve customer at very quick time; the more
responsive it can be to customer, the more it gains customer satisfaction [1].
Addis Ababa Water and Sewerage Authority (AAWSA) is a governmental agency,
established in 1971, with the aim of delivering portable water and waste water disposal
service to the dwellers of Addis Ababa. It is one of the municipal services providing
organization under the city administration of Addis Ababa [2]. The 2016 estimates put the
total number of inhabitants in Addis Ababa at 3.4 million. These people are currently being
supplied with drinking water through about 375,000 connections [3]. AAWSA has eight
branch offices, Arada, Mekanissa, Akaki Kaliti, Addis Ketema, Megenagna, Gulele, Gurd
Shola and Nifas Silk, one head office and one project office. These branches provide
different services for the respective customers which include the provision of new water line
connection, transfer of water line, sewerage line connection, water meter maintenance, etc.
[2, 4].
Government institutions have been launching new strategic approaches and reforms to
ensure customers satisfaction with quality and modern service. The application of utility
service payments efficiency and customers’ satisfaction is at its infant stage or almost not
much practiced by most Ethiopian organizations that usually have long customers’ queue.
The Ethiopian government has formulated E-Government Strategy-2010 to deliver efficient
public service through information technology infrastructure [1, 5].
Before 2012, AAWSA collected utility bill payments from their customers manually, i.e.
customers were expected to pay their monthly due at the respective district branches of the
agency. Then in 2012, Ministry of Information Communication Technology (MICT) of
Ethiopia in collaboration with Kifiya Financial Technology P.L.C. launched single window
facility for payment of utility bills. The system was known as ‘Lehulu’ and had replaced the
fragmented utility payment centers of EEPCO, Ethio Telecom, and AAWSA with a unified
billing system (UBS) [6, 7]. Although the introduction of the UBS provided an integrated
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approach to the billing process, payment was still manual, and customers had to visit
predefined Lehulu payment stations. After making the payments, customers were provided
with an invoice paper containing the customer details, consumption information, tariff rate,
debit and total fee. In 2019, the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) and AAWSA agreed
to collect water bills for its 550,000 customers through any of the CBE transaction
mechanisms. This was aimed to enhance customer satisfaction by allowing customers to pay
without hassle and minimizing additional cost, and also to reduce cash flow risk and
modernize its service delivery [8, 9].

2. Problem statement

Prior to 2012, AAWSA like many of the Ethiopia’s utility service providers used a manual
utility billing system. This mechanism was infamous for its late bill delivery, long queues of
customers as they wait for payments which forced them to sacrifice their productive time,
and rigid payment periods which were inconsiderate of customers’ ability to pay at the
predefined period. In 2012, at the second year of the implementation of the first growth and
transformation plan (GTP), the Ethiopian government launched “Lehulu” in order to tackle
the problem of fragmented payment facilities for utility payments and in hope of attaining
greater customer satisfaction [6, 7]. Even though this move was targeted at resolving the
aforementioned problems which characterized the old manual system that was implemented
since the organizations establishment, it did not perform as expected.
In both cases, customers were forced to wait in long queues to pay their bills, and in some
situations, they were not able to make the payments at the stations due to power failures,
busy network traffic, etc. [5]. Since different bills had different deadlines, they had difficulty
of keeping track of all the bills. As a result, they might forget paying the bills in time and
incur substantial penalty. The services could also be discontinued if customers missed
payments for two or more months. In addition, there was no convenient way for customers
to monitor their monthly or annual consumptions, they have to review the invoices provided
by the agencies or visit the respective district branches. The difficulty of reporting
maintenance issues is another problem faced by customers. Despite the availability of free
service line for receiving complaints, in most cases, they have to directly appeal to the
respective agencies branches to get timely solution.
In 2019, AAWSA reached an agreement with CBE to facilitate the collection of water bill
payment via any CBE transaction mechanisms [8, 9]. This move has shown some progress
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as to decrease the amount of waiting queues due to the large number of CBE branches
scattered around the city and the availability CBE mobile banking platforms. However, this
system is also criticized for transparency to its customers; they still face difficulty in
checking their bill summary and consumption rate (annual or monthly), and there is also no
easy way for requesting maintenance services. The digital or paper invoice provided by the
bank contains only the total fee, and customers have to visit the respective district branches
to obtain the proper invoice containing the customer details, consumption information, tariff
rate, debit and total fee. In general, the existing billing system is tedious, time consuming
and lacks transparency. This research project is conducted to tackle these issues and enhance
customer satisfaction by developing a web-based utility billing system for AAWSA, which
provides a suitable way for making payments, viewing bill summary, checking consumption
rates and reporting maintenance issues.
This research answers the following questions:
• What are the user requirements of the system?
• How can the proposed system enable customers to make utility payments, check bill
summary, monitor consumption rate and request maintenance services?
• What is the usability and adoption level of the new system among customers?

3. Objectives of the project

3.1. General objective
This project aims to develop a web-based utility billing system for AAWSA that is targeted
at the establishment of one-stop solution and a streamlined utility bill payment system to
guarantee substantial customer satisfaction, efficiency and transparency.
3.2. Specific objectives
• To identify the functional and nonfunctional requirements of the system.
• To offer a convenient mobile utility bill payment method that can be accessed by the
customer remotely for 24/7 year-round.
• To enable customers to have access to their monthly or annual consumption rate data,
digitally.
• To provide an interactive usage and billing reports for customers to easily review.
• To help customers report maintenance issues digitally and get timely solution.
• To assess the performance, usability and adoption level of the new system among
customers.

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4. Methodology
4.1. General approach
Design science research approach is selected to conduct this research project since the major
purpose of the study is to provide a working artifact as a solution which will solve the
problems identified in the existing system.
4.2. Detail procedures
This research follows the six steps of design science research model proposed by Peffers et
al. (2008) [10]. First, the specific research problem is defined, and the requirements and
business rules of the system are elaborated; then, the objectives of the new system are
described. Next, in the design and development phase, the design goals, the hardware and
software platform and the data management strategies needed to build the new system are
defined, and these outputs are used to develop the new system. Then, the system is
demonstrated using real world data. Following these, the usability, response time and
adoption level of the software is evaluated. Finally, a document, based on a research report
standard, is prepared and communicated [10].
Source population
Human and non-human data sources are used in conducting this research; the target
population is customers receiving services from the agency, i.e. AAWSA.
Sampling technique
Purposive sampling is employed to select 30 participants as a sample for the project.
Data collection methods
Document Analysis
Relevant records (invoices, maintenance request forms, etc.) are provided by the firm and
reviewed accordingly.
Interview
Semi-structured interview techniques are used to identify user requirements, shortcomings
of the current billing system and evaluate the satisfaction level of customers with the new
system.
Observation
Direct observation using a check list is conducted to assess how customers pay their bills,
monitor their consumption rate and request for maintenance using the existing and the new
system.
4.3. Tools and techniques
The overall software development lifecycle employs object-oriented system analysis and
design which provides a systematic, flexible and reusable way to build the system. Visual
studio is selected as the integrated development environment (IDE) tool to implement the
system, and to model and draw the diagrams in system analysis and design according to
unified modeling language (UML) Microsoft Visio is used. The front-end development of
the system involves the use HTML, JavaScript, CSS and Sass; whereas, Microsoft SQL
Server and ASP.NET framework are applied in the back-end implementation.

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5. Literature review
This section is composed of three major parts: first it describes public utilities and evaluates
the billing system in relation to public utilities especially with respect to water service
providers; then, it discusses the utility billing system of AAWSA.
5.1. Public utility
Public utilities refer to the large group of public service organizations that exist to locate,
produce or collect, transmit, distribute and/or process and store, a variety of products and
services that are vital to modern life. These products and services are ubiquitous. The
products or services provided by the public utility industry include electrical energy, natural
gas, water, sanitation, waste disposal and recycling, communications, public rail and bus
transportation, and certain types of storage facilities, including public warehouses, and grain
elevators, among others [11].
Public utilities differ from other business organizations in many other ways. Utilities are
legally required to serve all customers in their market area without discrimination, and they
are generally neither exclusively profit or nonprofit. Moreover, utility income often includes
a mix of earnings from rates charged customers, stocks and bonds, and/or taxes. Utilities
often practice legally sanctioned price discrimination, and the prices for the utility’s product
or service often do not reflect supply and demand market forces [11].
Public service value is a multidimensional concept, based upon eight key service delivery
attributes that are perceived by constituents to drive value creation such as accessibility,
affordability, availability, responsiveness, simplicity, accountability, consistency, and
customer service [5].
5.2. Billing system
Effective billing and collection systems are a critical component for ensuring the viability of
a service provider. Improving billing and collection activities has an immediate impact on
the revenue streams of a service provider that can, in turn, help the service provider in
improving services [12].
While the broader institutional environment can enhance or constrain the effectiveness of
billing and collection practices, specific provider level inefficiencies could also hamper the
efficiency of such practices. Service providers may lack important internal controls for
timely, accurate, and transparent billing and collection practices. They sometimes do not
have updated, accurate, and complete computerized listings of the customers they are
serving, thus making accurate billing almost impossible. Such mechanisms may also be

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ineffective because of the structure of tariffs as well as the absence of metered connections.
Poor collection practices also result from a lack of willingness on the part of consumers to
pay because of the poor quality of services and the poor customer care they receive, or from
substandard collection systems that are cumbersome and not transparent, thus
disincentivizing payment of bills [6].
Increasing billing and collection rates is one of the key tools for enhancing the revenue base
of the utility, achieving financial viability and sustainability, and hence registering
improvements in services delivered. Service providers will need to realize that the benefits
of efficient billing and collection practices on their operations is almost instant and can, in
fact, improve the revenue accounts of the utility almost immediately [11, 12]. Computerized
system of billing and an updated and complete customer database is a must if a service
provider is looking to maintain high billing efficiencies. Providers must also ensure that
customer databases are updated and computerized, through robust accounting, record
keeping, regular systematized checks, and billing procedures [1].
5.2.1. Review of water billing systems
Poor billing and collection practices prevent water utilities from recovering sufficient costs
to properly operate and maintain facilities and, therefore, provide adequate services to the
customer. Urban water service providers will need to significantly improve their billing and
collection practices if they are to become financially viable and sustainable for delivering
continuous improvements in the quality and standard of services. Water service providers
must encourage consumers to pay on time for services by simplifying the payment process.
Service providers would need to find their own localized solutions for catering to customer
needs. Customers could be offered online payment options through payment gateways, the
web, call centers and one-stop shops for payment of utility bills [12].
Web based water billing system is an automated system that is based on delivering the water
bills to the consumer. This system can manage the billing by sending it directly to the
consumer using a web application [13]. Employing such a system can enhance customer
satisfaction by enabling the quick and transparent delivery of services. Pelandiana and Ado
(2017), developed a web-Based billing and collection system for a Municipal Water and
Services Unit of Mulanay, Philippines, which comprised the billing, collection, storing the
records in a database and report generation. Review of the proposed system demonstrated
good satisfaction rates (4.37 in Likert’s five-point scale) among end users, with respect to
functionality, usability, reliability, portability and efficiency criteria [13].
Dhumale et al. (2018) designed an automatic water billing system based on Android
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application. Although the application allowed customers to get real time reading of water
usage and minimize wastage of water, the system had additional hardware requirements. It
used an automated water flow meter which measured the flow rate, calculated and directly
transferred the readings to water billing management application, based on android
application, through Wi-Fi to pay bill [14].
Agrawal (2008) stated consumers in Hyderabad, India today have the convenience of paying
water bills either through eSeva or through the Hyderabad Metro Water Supply and
Sewerage Board’s collection counters. eSeva is an e-governance initiative that provides
citizens with an easy and hassle-free way of paying their utility bills. Citizens are offered a
variety of payment modes including cash and online means for paying water bills, electricity
bills, and property taxes. Currently, about 70 percent of the Board’s water bills are received
through eSeva. Partnering with eSeva resulted in significant benefits for the board: increase
in bill paying consumer base, rise in revenue collection, cost saving on operation and
maintenance of collection centers and reallocation of staff to other billing activities [15].

5.3. Utility billing system of AAWSA

To bill its customers based on their water consumption, AAWSA used a billing system called
Basis2 which is successfully integrated to AAWSA’s financial system [2]. Basis2 is a
software suite developed by Prophecy International for billing and customer management
solution; it is Windows based system and offers online support [15]. Before 2012, AAWSA
collected utility bill payments from their customers manually, i.e. customers were expected
to pay their monthly due at the respective district branches of the agencies. Customers
belonging to one collection center are divided into several groups with different payment
periods. This mechanism was infamous for its late bill delivery, long queues of customers as
they wait for payments which forced them to sacrifice their productive time, and rigid
payment periods which were inconsiderate of customers’ ability to pay at the predefined
period.
The Ethiopian government has formulated E-Government Strategy-2010 to deliver efficient
public service through information technology infrastructure; Common Service Centers
(CSC) is mentioned as one of the targets to be able to achieve the strategy. CSC is unifying
the different bill collection centers into one window service payment point to enable the
citizens get the services in integrated and simplified way. Therefore, since 2012 the MICT
has entered a public private partnership agreement with Kifiya Financial Technology P.L.C.
and launched a single window facility for payment of utility bills. The system is known as
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‘Lehulu’, an Amharic word meaning "for all". Lehulu had replaced fragmented utility
payment centers of EEPCO, Ethio Telecom, and AAWSA to unified billing system [1]. Even
though this move was targeted at resolving the problems which characterized the old manual
system that was implemented since the organizations establishment, it did not perform as
expected. This was attributed to the persistent network and power failures which preyed on
almost all Lehulu branches and long queues that lasted for hours and lack of transparency
for customers to monitor their monthly or annual consumptions [5].
According to Neima (2019), based on an investigation on four Lehulu payment centers, most
of the customers of Lehulu (71%) were highly dissatisfied with waiting area, parking
availability of the offices, and they were not happy on the employees’ timely service
delivery, adequacy, willingness, assistance and co-operation with customers when problems
faced. The majority of the customers (83%) did not feel safe and happy when they come to
the centers to get different service; the overall satisfaction rate was low (only 40%) [1].
In 2019, AAWSA dissolved its partnership with Kifiya Financial Technology P.L.C. and
entered a three-year agreement with CBE to collect water bills for its 550,000 customers
through any of the CBE transaction mechanisms. The agreement is intended to upgrade the
payment collection and allows customers to pay without hassle and minimize additional cost
which creates more satisfied customers [8, 9]. Currently, customers can make payment
directly at any branch of CBE, at cash offices of AAWSA district branches, using CBE Birr
or CBE’s mobile banking service. This move has shown some progress as to decrease the
amount of waiting queues but this system is still criticized for lack of transparency to its
customers.

6. Scope and limitations of the research

This research project focuses on providing a viable web-based utility billing system for
AAWSA which facilitates the payment of bills, checking of bill summary, monitoring of
monthly or annual consumption rate, and request of maintenance services. The project
targets only customers of AAWSA and no other utility service providers. Investigation of the
AAWSA’s inner workings is not the focus of this research, and the project is not concerned
with the details of the payment verification process which is left for the banks working with
the system. Due to the need for additional hardware requirements and lack of automated
water meter in the current system, automated bill collection, bill calculation based on the

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 tariff rate and automated meter reading are not included in the research.

7. Significance of the research

This project provides AAWSA with a chance to consider using a digital solution to
streamline, simplify and enhance transparency of the existing system, and for the customers
with a portal to access customer services provided by the organization without the need for
time consuming, tiresome back and forth procedures. It improves the agency’s cost recovery
and allows the organization to expand and deliver improved, reliable and sustainable
services. The research also provides an opportunity to assess how the conversion to a
decentralized digital solution can revolutionize payment transaction, and sufficiently achieve
customer satisfaction. Moreover, this study helps other researchers and policy makers to
make further research and fully automate the inner workings of AAWSA including
automated bill collection, bill calculation and automated meter reading. It also serves as a
reference for other government organizations to consider digitalizing customer service
interaction for efficient service delivery and transparent customer billing.

8. Time plan

August,2021 September, 2021 November, 2021

TASK Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Research
Proposal

Requirement
Analysis

System design
and development

Demonstration

System
evaluation

Research report

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 9. Budget Plan

Description Unit Quantity Unit Price Total Cost

(Birr) (Birr)

Web hosting Month 12 4,800 57,600

Web domain Year 1 432 432

Personal computers pcs 6 20,000 120,000

Purchase of software 45,000

Transportation Allowance for staff 10,000

Stationery and Utility cost 15,000

Salary of system administrator Month 5 10,000 50,000

Training of key staff members per 10 600 6,000

Other costs 4,500

Total Cost 308,532

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 10. References

[1] Neima S., “Assessment of utilities services payment quality and customer satisfaction:
The case of Kifiya Financal Technology - selected Lehulu centers in Addis Ababa,” M.A.
thesis, Department of Business Administration, St. Mary University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,
2017. [Online]. Available: http://repository.smuc.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/4860/1
/Neima%20Sherfa.pdf
[2] Surafel G., “Determining water bill payment status of AAWSA customers by using data
mining techniques,” M.Sc. thesis, Department of Computer Science, HiLCoE School of
Computer Science & Technology, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2017.
[3] VEI: Dutch Water Operators. (2017). “Ethiopia, Addis Ababa Water and Sewage
Authority (AAWSA)”. [Online]. Available: https://www.vei.nl/partners/aawsa
[4] Addis Ababa Water and Sewerage Authority. (2021). “History of AAWSA”. [Online].
Available: https://aawsa.gov.et/history_of_aawsa
[5] Rahel S., “Contribution of unified billing system in facilitating public service delivery:
The case of selected Lehulu centers in Addis Ababa,” M.A. thesis, Department of Public
Administration and Development Management, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia, 2014. [Online]. Available: http://etd.aau.edu.et/bitstream/handle/123456789/8723
/Rahel%20Sertsu.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
[6] Tadesse G., “Practice and challenges of public-private partnership for a unified billing
system in Addis Ababa,” M.A. thesis, Department of Business Administration, St. Mary
University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2017. [Online]. Available: http://repository.smuc.edu.et
/bitstream/123456789/3897/1/ Thesis%20I%20Final%201.pdf
[7] AWiB. (2012). “Ethiopia to implement unified billing system”. [Online]. Available:
http://awib.org.et/newsite/ethiopia-to-implement-unified-billing-system
[8] Capital Ethiopia. (2019). “Simpler water payments”. [Online]. Available:
https://www.capitalethiopia.com/capital/simpler-water-payments
[9] Addis Ababa Water and Sewerage Authority. (2021). “AAWSA and CBE agreement for
water bill payment”. [Online]. Available: https://aawsa.gov.et/2019/06/
[10] K. Peffers, T. Tuunanen, M. A. Rothenberger, S. Chatterjee, “A Design Science Research
Methodology for Information Systems Research,” Journal of Management Information
Systems, vol. 24, no. 3, 2008. [Online]. Available: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/

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download?doi=10.1.1.535.7773&rep=rep1&type=pdf
[11] D. E. McNabb, “Public utilities: essential services, critical infrastructure” in Public
Utilities Old Problems, New Challenges, 2nd ed. Massachusetts, USA: Edward Elgar
Publishing, 2016. [Online]. Available: https://www.elgaronline.com/downloadpdf
/9781785365522/chapter01.xhtml
[12] P. C. Agrawal, “Performance Improvement Planning: Developing Effective Billing and
Collection Practices,” Water and Sanitation Program, New Delhi, India, 2008. [Online].
Available: https://www.wsp.org/sites/wsp/files/publications/527200820356_SA_PIP2_
May2008.pdf
[13] A. L. Pelandiana and R. G. Ado, “Web-based Billing and Collection System for a
Municipal Water and Services Unit,” in 4th International Research Conference on Higher
Education, Manila, Philippines, June 2018. [Online]. Available: https://knepublishing.com/
index.php/KnE-Social/article/view/2371/5222
[14] R. B Dhumale, N. D. Thombare, P. M. Bangare, “Automatic Water Billing System based
on Android Application,” International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology, vol.
5, no. 8, August 2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.irjet.net/archives/V5/i8/IRJET-
V5I8169.pdf
[15] Basis2. (2019). “basis2 – Billing and Customer Information systems”. [Online].
Available: https://basis2.com/

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