Poor water quality, billing among top issues raised

Poor quality of water and the factors influencing billing were two of the major issues discussed during a public hearing into the Guyana Water Inc, organised by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and held at the Rupununi Room, Hotel Tower on Wednesday.

A team from GWI, headed by Chief Executive Karan Singh, fielded questions posed by the PUC and from members of the audience concerning the services of the water utility. The team from the PUC included Chairman Prem Persaud, commissioners John Caesar, Badrie Persaud, Maurice Solomon and secretary Ian Vidiahar Persaud.

A recurring theme among the issues raised was the poor quality of water supplied by GWI.  One resident from the Westminster Housing Scheme, located on the West Bank Demerara, complained that residents in his community constantly received discoloured water which has an odour. He said that as a result of this, they seldom used water supplied by GWI. Additionally, the man told the gathering,  the water meters in his community have been inexplicably covered with concrete.

Singh responded that the brownish water was top quality water although it was not aesthetically pleasing. He said there were currently 17 water treatment facilities in the country, but not every community received treated water. However, he maintained that GWI was doing its best to remedy this and identified the ongoing construction of two iron treatment plants in Sophia and Central Ruimveldt as a step in this direction.

In relation to the meters being covered with concrete, Singh said he was baffled about how this could have occurred and promised that a full investigation would be conducted.

The issue of customers being excessively billed was also highlighted, with the concern raised that several clients were unaware of the category under which they were charged.

Singh explained that once a business venture was occurring at any premises no matter how small, it would be classified as a commercial entity. However, he said, there are different categories — small, medium or large scale commercial or even domestic-combined. He said GWI would note the size of the physical structures in determining into which category a business entity would be placed.

Meanwhile, Singh said, GWI was also looking to have all its customers being equipped with water meters, but admitted that it would take a while before this was achieved.

According to him, there are 40,000 metered customers in the country and a further 40,000 meters would be provided next year. He said this would ensure that customers were accurately billed.

He added that those commercial businesses that did not have meters would be supplied with an estimated bill based on the number of employees and customers attached to the premises. Singh explained that this method takes cognisance of the amount of water a customer would have used in times past.

However, the PUC had received a complaint from the Guyana Power and Light Company (GPL) saying that when all 26 of its branches across the country had been billed based on the number of employees attached to these various divisions, there was a marked increased in their bill. For 2008, the company was billed at $19.5M, when it usually pays about $4M per year.

Another contentious issue was the factors taken into account when or if customers were retroactively billed. According to the GWI officials, customers could be billed retroactively up to a maximum of three years and they would be billed according to the tariffs of the period. The chief executive said that if customers received services they should pay.

However, at this point, the PUC chairman challenged the GWI officials, showing proof that this method had not been applied to one of the Guyana Oil Company (Guyoil) branches.

The entity had been billed retroactively for 27 months for a total of $2.7 million and had been charged at a rate of $112.00 per cubic metre instead of the approved rates of $100.80.

The chairman said it was also illegal to bill customers retroactively if it was in fact the water company that had been negligent in providing bills.

Wednesday’s forum was held under the Section 24 of the PUC Act, which allows the commission to initiate and conduct investigations into the operations and standards of any public utility. According to the Secretary of the PUC, Vidiahar Persaud, who also chaired the proceedings, there has been a 40% increase in complaints about the sector for this year in comparison to those made last year.

The PUC is a statutory body established in 1990 with regulatory powers and responsibilities. At present, the water and sewerage services, electricity and telecommunications are under the purview of the commission, with GWI coming under its jurisdiction on November 12, 2002.

Both the Chairman and the Secretary of the PUC said that the commission will be meeting GWI soon, to discuss the issues raised at Wednesday’s forum.