AS part of efforts to improve it services, reduce the wastage of water and increase its pressure for domestic use, the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) has purchased 20,000 new smart meters, which are expected to arrive in Guyana during the first week of June 2021.

This is according to the Chief Executive Officer, Shaik Baksh, who told a press conference, on Thursday last, that the utility company intends to have meters installed all across the country in keeping with its road to recovery.

Baksh alluded to the $1.1 billion in losses that GWI suffered as at September 2020.

“This is an integral part of our strategic plan to have 85-90per cent metering over five years. We are now at 51per cent, so we have pushed that programme and we will see an improvement in the level of service…; you will see an improvement in the level of service; you will see losses going down, people tend to conserve more water and so on and we will see our non-revenue water losses, commercial and physical losses coming down,” he stated.

The GWI is currently recording 70 per cent non-revenue and commercial losses, which it intends to reduce to just about 55 per cent in 2021.
Revenue recovery

In addition to the installation of the new meters, the GWI has also extended its Customer Assistance Programme (CAP), which offers customers the opportunity to pay just 50 per cent of their backed-up bills, as well as just 50 per cent of their reconnection fees, to June 30, 2021.

“One of the main challenges is the collection of our revenues, and because of COVID and other conditions, many of our customers have been falling back in their payments to GWI and this has been having an impact on us, but we have persuasive strategies– writing letters, appealing to the customers through the telephone and other media to pay up the bills– because we have a large utility to operate and we need monies for all kinds of things,” Baksh told the news conference.

He noted that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, several hundreds of customers defaulted on their obligations to GWI, but from the beginning of the pandemic, that number saw a steady surge.

The CEO noted that this type of reduced revenue had caused the GWI, in September 2020, to owe over $800 million to suppliers.
However, Baksh stated that several customers have restarted payments to the utility company, with some already taking advantage of the CAP.
“In 2020 September, GWI was on the verge of a financial collapse, with $1.1 billion in losses, it had to report to a bank overdraft to pay staff salaries. This is no longer the case; we are in a surplus right now in terms of our cash and all staff have been paid on a monthly basis on time.

“In 2020, over $800M was due; we have reduced that to $245 million in May 2021; so we have retained the confidence and support of our suppliers out there and they are now willing to give us materials and supplies and credit, so there has been a change in that regard,” Baksh expressed.

Innovation
The company’s CEO noted that several systems have been employed to increase the productivity of the GWI in an effort to provide its customers with faster, more reliable service.

He noted that within a few months, the GWI was able to provide over 4,500 service connections that had been backed up for some time. He noted that no Guyanese should be denied access to water, adding that the GWI intends to cater to an additional 500 applicants within the next few months, which would clear its backlog.

“We are working to move the utility to stronger viability and sustainability over the next couple of months, and a year or two as we go along. The waiting lists now, we have reduced that to 500, so persons have to wait a smaller time of duration to obtain a new service connection and, hopefully, within another month or two, we will be very current.”