Four parishes account for the highest number of NWC disconnection
Published:Friday | May 21, 2021 | 12:14 AMJudana Murphy/Gleaner Writer
Collection efficiency at the National Water Commission (NWC) is estimated to be 80 per cent of billing.
The NWC supplies 190 million gallons of potable water each day to its more than 400,000 registered customers.
The utility company had targeted over 21,700 accounts for disconnection, which is valued at $2.26 billion.
At yesterday’s quarterly press briefing, NWC President Mark Barnett said most of the 17,862 disconnections that took place between January and April were in Kingston, St Andrew, Clarendon and St James.
These parishes account for about 60 per cent of disconnections while the named parishes, with the exception of St James, account for more than $1 billion in outstanding amounts.
“That is one of the reasons why we are driving a more aggressive collection and disconnection campaign because we have to improve our collection efficiency. It is the only way we will be able to satisfy and meet all our financial commitments - both loans and production costs,” he explained.
More than half of these customers, or 9,349, were reconnected, representing $500 million collected.
He said the NWC has been sending out final demand letters to customers before proceeding to the courts.
In the last six weeks, 163 such letters were issued for a total value of $270 million.
Barnett used the opportunity to urge those customers to contact the NWC and make payment arrangements rather than heading to the court, which may lead to property forfeiture.
Barnett explained that the NWC has not fully quantified social water islandwide, but efforts are currently concentrated on the Corporate Area.
The NWC is seeing upwards of 10,000 cubic metres of water per day being consumed in socially challenged areas, that is, communities without formal infrastructure.
“The average cost for water is about $241 per cubic metre. My last estimate shows that we are probably losing just about $18 million per day,” the NWC president revealed.
Barnett reasoned that the utility company is the single largest consumer of energy from the Jamaica Public Service.
“Our energy cost is driven by NRW [non-revenue water]. If we can get a lot of our old mains replaced, and if we can get people to be honest across the various networks that we serve, our energy cost will see a reduction. The irony of it is that when people don’t pay for water, when people steal water, they don’t turn off the pipe at all. If they were stealing and being conservative, our cost would be much less, but that’s the attitude that we see,” he lamented.