The Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) will start its annual countrywide disconnection campaign for unpaid water service on Monday.
This campaign follows quickly on the heels of the ‘Free Pass’ promotion the company recently advertised inviting customers who had been disconnected to reconnect their services free of penalty charges.
Customer Services Manager Jeannette Thomas said there had been a significant response to the ‘Free Pass’ promotion as more than 2000 customers responded. “However, there are some customers who refuse to make contact with our customer services offices to settle their arrears. Hence we are forced to execute our annual disconnection campaign to remove the services of those customers who simply refuse to pay for their service,” she said.
GWI had launched the ‘Free Pass’ exercise to encourage customers in arrears to make payments before the annual countrywide disconnection exercise. This was done jointly with strengthening its community outreach programme Community Connect; payment reminder letters dispatched to customers and businesses, public announcements in rural communities, SMS/text messages to over 200,000 customers and a broad-spectrum public relations campaign.
GWI also employed additional staff at its new Enforcement Unit to monitor communities for customers who have illegally reconnected their service or engaged in tampering. The Enforcement Teams will remove the entire service of customers who have received more than two warnings regarding their outstanding water service charges.
