THE Guyana Water Inc. (GWI) said yesterday that it will begin its annual countrywide disconnection exercise for unpaid water service charges on December 1. According to Customer Services Manager, Jeannette Thomas, there was a significant response to the company’s ‘Free Pass’ promotion in which disconnected customers were offered free reconnection.

“In excess of 2,000 customers countrywide responded to our ‘Free Pass’ promotion,” Thomas said.

“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.”

To encourage customers to make payments before the annual countrywide disconnection exercise, GWI had launched the ‘Free Pass’ promotion, intensified its community outreach programme ‘Community Connect’, and sent payment reminder letters to customers and businesses.

GWI also made public announcements in rural communities, sent SMS/text messages to more than 200,000 customers and invested in a public awareness campaign via radio, television, newspapers and Internet-based media.

Meanwhile, the water company has employed additional staff members to function in the utility’s new Enforcement Unit which will monitor communities countrywide for customers who have illegally reconnected their service or engaged in tampering.
The GWI enforcement teams will also remove the entire service of customers who have received more than two warnings regarding their outstanding water service charges.

“Despite written correspondences and our ‘Free Pass’ promotion, some customers have made no effort to pay their outstanding debt,” the Customer Services Manager said.
“We have no other choice but to remove the entire service of these customers.  These customers will have to reapply for a new service and pay the full cost of installation. This is a last resort since the company must recover the cost of providing water service countrywide.”

NO GUARANTEE
Thomas also warned that due to the number of customers scheduled for disconnection, GWI cannot guarantee that disconnected customers will be reconnected in time for the Christmas holidays.

“If customers are disconnected in December, due to the large disconnection list, GWI cannot guarantee that every customer will be reconnected in time for Christmas Day,” Thomas said.

“Therefore, we are pleading with our customers to avoid such an uncomfortable situation and visit a GWI office now.  For customers with large debt, GWI ‘Wallet-friendly’ payment plans are available,” Thomas  added.