Guyana Water Incorpo-rated (GWI) customers will have to pay increased rates from October 1st as the company will be instituting the second phase of tariff increases approved by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) last year.
The PUC, via Order No 2 of 2018, dated June 7th, 2018, had approved GWI’s application for the increases.
“After careful consideration of the views expressed by the various stakeholders, namely the GWI Officials, Consumers Association and the members of the public, the Commission here-by approves the following rates to be implemented in two phases,” the Commis-sion had stated, while noting that phase one would be made effective from October 1st, 2018, while the second phase would become effective from October 1st this year.
“The implementation of the increases in a graduated format is an attempt to alleviate the financial burden on the consumers when compared to the last implemented charges as awarded under Order 3/2005,” the Commission had explained.
According to the Order, there will be adjustments to existing tariff bands, introduction of new tariff bands, introduction of a fixed charge, increases in existing ancillary charges and the introduction of new ancillary charges, in addition to reduced tariffs for pensioners.
From October last year, metered residential consumers had to pay a monthly fixed charge of $250 and a monthly consumption charge of $86 per cubic metre for consumers in the $60.90 category, while other consumers had to pay $112 per cubic metre.
However, from October this year, there will be a monthly fixed charge of $500 and a monthly consumption charge of $112 per cubic metre for all customers.
For unmetered residential consumers, from October last year, they were required to pay $250, along with a monthly consumption charge of $1,100. However, from October this year, the charges will be increased to $500 and $1,450, respectively.
From October last year, metered pensioners were expected to pay $74 per cubic metre for the first ten cubic metres, and $86 for each cubic metre thereafter.
From October this year, unmetered pensioners will no longer incur a monthly fixed charge while their monthly consumption charge will be a flat fee of $740 per month.
There are new charges for metered non-residential and unmetered non-residential consumers, the latter group of which includes small, medium and large commercial and industrial consumers, along with new sewerage tariffs.
Among the 29 listed ancillary charges with new prices as of 1st October, 2018, are non-residential connection fee ¾” or less ($16,000), residential connection fee ¾” or less ($10,000), residential reconnection non-voluntary ($7,500), and residential disconnection voluntary ($4,000). GWI, which said it was operating at a significant loss, had submitted an application to the PUC on January 9th, 2018.
The PUC had noted that there had been no increases in tariffs since 2005, and notwithstanding government’s substantial interventions since 2005, GWI was unable to cover its operations, maintenance and depreciation charges.
It had also noted that the company’s application for an increase in rates would not return it to profitability and government subventions may still be required for the company to achieve its objectives as detailed in its 2017 – 2021 Strategic Plan.
As a condition to the granting of the increased rates for the various categories of users, GWI was required to meet several targets and to report its performance to the Commission bi-annually, commencing from the January 1st, 2019.
Among the targets set by the PUC were: specific percentage reductions in non-revenue water over the next three years culminating in a figure of four percent (4%) onwards from 2021 until it accounts for less than 15 percent of total production; the metering of 5,000 un-metered customers in 2018, and 12,000 un-metered consumers in 2019, and 20,000 consumers each year from 2020 and thereafter, until 100 percent of all services are metered; the sanitisation of the consumer database to reflect legitimate debtors no later than June 30th, 2019; and the annual incremental increase of collection rates on annual billings to a level of 96 percent by the end of December 2020.
