Delinquent water consumers owe the Guyana Water Inc. (GWI) more than $4bn and Chief Executive Officer Karan Singh says that the company’s new billing system now enables the company to address its debt collection concerns more aggressively.
But according to Singh while the new billing system has enabled the company to dispatch around 90 per cent of its domestic bills for 2008, problems associated with serious deficiencies in GWI’s data base means that the company is still unable to bill many of its customers.
Singh disclosed that the approximately 160,000 customers on GWI’s present data base probably accounted for between 70 and 75 per cent of the company’s customers. “Several of the residents of some communities including Cummings Lodge and Sophia and some of the new housing schemes are not on our data base. In addition to that there are numerous cases in Georgetown where consumers are now using water on a commercial rather than a domestic basis and where our data base has no record of those changes.
Meanwhile, in an implicit criticism of the tenure of the British Company Severn Trent whose management contract with GWI was terminated in 2006, Singh told Stabroek Business that what he described as the existing unreliable data base was the product of three attempts and more than $100m in expenditure.
According to Singh other aspects of GWI’s current difficulties were also due to inefficiencies of the management contractors.
Senior officials of Severn Trent had previously told Stabroek Business that GWI was satisfied with the payment record of the local business community. But Singh told Stabroek Busi-ness that since his appointment as Chief Executive Officer last year he had seen no evidence to substantiate that claim. “It does not appear that a revenue collection drive was a priority under the management contract. At the moment we are collecting around 35 per cent more of the outstanding debts to the company than was the case previously,” Singh said.
Singh named two local companies whose services had been disconnected by GWI for millions of dollars in outstanding water rates but whose services had to be restored after the companies had sought and obtained injunctions against the company. “Most of the people who are moving to the courts to have their services restored are businesses that can afford to spend money on legal proceedings,” Singh said.
Meanwhile, in a further criticism of Severn Trent’s tenure Singh told Stabroek Business that good governance appeared to have been a problem under the previous GWI administration. “Good governance was something that was badly lacking. There appeared to be problems associated with the procurement of goods and services and ensuring adherence to due process,” Singh said. GWI is currently pursuing a “three-year turnaround plan designed to prevent the further deterioration of the company.” One of the major areas of our current focus is preventing the rise in the level of non-revenue water, that is water which is provided by the company for which it is not collecting revenue,” he added.
Non-revenue water, that is, water that is both stolen, wasted or leaked from the system currently accounts for more than 60 per cent of the water produced by GWI.
Singh told Stabroek Business that leak repairs was a critical element of the turnaround programme and that this year the company was seeking to spend more than $500m on leak repairs.
Singh told Stabroek Business that he was unhappy with the attitude of the business sector towards the payment of water rates adding that they appeared disinclined to pay those rates “voluntarily.” Less than 30 per cent of our customers come in to GWI to pay their rates. We have to remind them and to provide grace periods and sometimes to go after them,” Singh said. According to Singh GWI’s new billing system met with many of the critical requirements that had been absent from the previous one though he conceded that some customers have complained about the complexity of the new system. He said that he has asked the billing department to provide a simpler format that can be more easily interpreted by customers.
Government currently pays around 80 per cent of GWI’s electricity charges and Singh told Stabroek Business that since electricity accounts for by far the largest share of the company’s operating expenses it would not be possible to sustain its operations in the absence of that subsidy.
