SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

In the height of the dry sea­son where some com­mu­ni­ties have been suf­fer­ing for wa­ter, the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion (RIC) has record­ed few­er com­plaints from the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) cus­tomers about its de­liv­ery of ser­vice and in­ad­e­quate wa­ter sup­ply.

Con­fir­ma­tion came yes­ter­day from ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of the RIC Dr James Lee Young dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia as UNC ac­tivist De­vant Ma­haraj in a What­sapp mes­sage to the me­dia called on cus­tomers of WASA in Cen­tral and South, who have not been re­ceiv­ing wa­ter in their taps for weeks, to boy­cott pay­ing the State-owned wa­ter com­pa­ny..

The RIC is a statu­to­ry body that reg­u­lates wa­ter, waste wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty sec­tors and is re­spon­si­ble for pro­tect­ing con­sumers’ in­ter­est while at the same time en­sur­ing that ser­vice providers have ad­e­quate re­sources to pro­vide the high­est qual­i­ty of ser­vice to cus­tomers.

Lee Young ad­mit­ted that the num­ber of over­all com­plaints the RIC has been re­ceiv­ing from WASA’s cus­tomers about not re­ceiv­ing wa­ter reg­u­lar­ly and its lev­el of ser­vice has been de­clin­ing.

On av­er­age, the RIC re­ceives be­tween 180 to 200 com­plaints month­ly. How­ev­er, in Jan­u­ary they re­ceived 170 com­plaints. Feb­ru­ary 198 and March 128.

“Well over 50 to 60 per cent of the com­plaints re­late to in­ter­rup­tion in pipe-born sup­ply while 20 per cent re­lates to re­quests for truck-borne sup­ply,” Lee Young said.

“We have seen a re­duc­tion in the num­ber of com­plaints. A very sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tion of com­plaints in March this year com­pared to the same pe­ri­od last year.”

WASA has 400,000 plus res­i­den­tial cus­tomers in its data­base.

The com­plaints, Lee Young said, have been fluc­tu­at­ing de­pend­ing on the time of year.

He at­trib­uted the de­cline in re­ports to a num­ber of fac­tors.

“One was that it could just be noise in the sta­tis­tics. It could just be an anom­aly.”

Be­fore a com­plaint is reg­is­tered with the RIC, he said a re­port would have to be made to WASA by the cus­tomer.

“The the­o­ry that is be­ing ad­vanced is that we know there are a num­ber of is­sues with WASA’s cus­tomer care cen­tre with the time they take to an­swer calls.”

In a nut­shell, Lee Young said there was a feel­ing by cus­tomers that WASA’s ser­vice to the pub­lic has been de­clin­ing.

“It’s pos­si­ble that WASA’s sys­tem is so swamped now with peo­ple call­ing for re­lief in this bad dry sea­son and com­plain­ing about lack of wa­ter that their re­sources are over­whelmed and they are not an­swer­ing calls as they should be. And the knock-on ef­fect is that peo­ple are not mak­ing any com­plaints.”

Lee Young said in the cur­rent en­vi­ron­ment, cus­tomers would feel “ex­treme­ly frus­trat­ed and ag­griev­ed. There is noth­ing worst than to pay for a ser­vice and not get it...whether it is wa­ter or what­ev­er it may be. So if you are hooked up to WASA’s sys­tem when you get wa­ter or not it is ir­rel­e­vant as far as the billing is con­cerned.”

He said it was un­fair for WASA’s cus­tomers to pay for wa­ter and not re­ceive it in their taps.

“I think it is not fair for any­one in this coun­try, giv­en our lev­el of de­vel­op­ment, that they should be go­ing with­out wa­ter. There should be a re­li­able source of wa­ter for every cit­i­zen in the coun­try.”

To pay for some­thing you do not get, Lee Young said, was the na­ture of the WASA’s leg­is­la­tion and their method of charg­ing.

“The RIC is an en­ti­ty that can on­ly op­er­ate with­in the man­date of the leg­is­la­tion.”

The cur­rent prob­lems at WASA, Lee Young said had not de­vel­oped overnight.

“There is no me­ter­ing. Less than four per cent of the res­i­den­tial pop­u­la­tion has me­ters. So wa­ter is charged at a fixed rate.”

In ad­di­tion, he said the pub­lic has not been in­cen­tivised to con­serve wa­ter.

Lee Young agreed that the pub­lic’s mind­set has to change in the way they use and man­age their wa­ter.

He said res­i­den­tial cus­tomers are charged $1.75 for 220 gal­lons of wa­ter which they “mis­use and waste” with­out a con­science.

The last time WASA im­posed new rates was 1993.

“The rev­enues at WASA is not match­ing up.”

There has been sig­nif­i­cant amount of un­der­in­vest­ment over the years. Those two prob­lems have left WASA in a po­si­tion to ill-man­age the sup­ply.”

What re­course is there for cus­tomers who pay for wa­ter but do not re­ceive any?

“In the first in­stance, they need to get wa­ter so they can make a re­quest for pipe borne sup­ply. And that is what the re­course needs to be in terms of fi­nan­cial rec­om­pense which is prob­a­bly not a great deal,” Lee Young said.

Can the RIC man­date WASA to re­bate pay­ing cus­tomers who are not sup­plied wa­ter?

Lee Young said: “I would have to check on that. I can’t an­swer that off the top of my head.”

Re­bates, Lee Young said, are giv­en to T&TEC cus­tomers whose ap­pli­ances may mal­func­tion dur­ing an elec­tri­cal surge or drop.

He said WASA’s rates were sig­nif­i­cant­ly cheap­er com­pared to our Caribbean coun­ter­parts, with Suri­name hav­ing the cheap­est rates.

In Sep­tem­ber 2017, the RIC start­ed a con­sul­ta­tion for wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty rate re­views.

Last year, Lee Young said the util­i­ties were un­able to pro­vide the RIC with in­for­ma­tion they need­ed to com­plete this ex­er­cise.

He ad­mit­ted that the RIC had been stalled with this process.

Once the in­for­ma­tion is sup­plied, the RIC’s job, Lee Young said would be to set new rates and not en­force them.

“There­after, it is en­tire­ly up to the util­i­ties and its share­hold­ers with what they want to do. We could set the rates and it may not even hap­pen.”