The financial viability of the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) has been restored as of 2022, according to the entity’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Shaik Baksh.
“The financial viability of GWI has been restored from a position of bankruptcy just two years ago. By that I mean we are in a healthy financial position, thanks to those who have paying up their rates and tariffs. But there are still challenges in those areas, I must emphasize,” Baksh stated at a press briefing yesterday,
According to the CEO, GWI surpassed its financial target for 2022 by 17 percent.
He said that due to the financial trends of 2021 and 2022, GWI has been able to embark on many projects including building two new offices in regions Nine and Five, refurbishing two in Region Two and in Region Four.
GWI has also increased its fleet of vehicles, building its inventory, and is ensuring that employees are being paid on time and salaries increased.
Baksh stated that GWI had a budget of $6.5 billion and is to embark on projects on the coast and in the hinterland.
He noted that GWI installed 20,000 meters in 2022, which is in line with targets set and hopes to increase it to 35,000 this year.
He added that GWI has its challenges but the four main ones moving forward are improving the level of services in the ten regions and while they have been able to fix thousands of leakages in the past year, this is still an area to be improved.
Baksh revealed that for the last two months GWI has repaired almost 200 leakages on the East Bank of Demerara, which has resulted in a better level of service for those residents.
In addition, he said, the company is working hard to reduce the non-revenue water (nrw).
“We are working hard to bring it down to sustainable levels the next two to three years. In our strategic plan we have to reduce the nrw losses from 67% to 55%. And we are hoping we can reduce to 50% and that will clearly translate to better financial performance of GWI,” he said.
The third is revenue collection. “While we are doing fairly well with our revenue collection, there is much more to be done and I appeal to our customers to pay up so that we can provide a better level of services,” he said.
