Dear Editor,
IN our attempt to respond to “My words to the President on our first exchange” column, penned by Mr. Freddie Kissoon of Kaieteur News and published on April 15, we wish to first of all remind customers that we cannot address their concerns if they are not brought to our attention.
In other words, if no report has been made, then we have no record of your complaint in our system, hence we cannot address same.
In his column, Mr. Kissoon complained of not receiving a water bill for the past three months, prompting him to make a substantial payment to put his account in a credit, thus avoiding disconnection.
Prior to his public missive, we were not informed of his claim of not receiving bills. Upon checking, however, our Bill Deliverer has confirmed delivering his bill each month, as she was able to positively describe Mr. Kissoon’s home and mailbox.
Additionally, Mr. Kissoon has had mobile numbers for two Customer Service Representatives, who he called in the past when he had queries. Mr. Kissoon is, therefore, encouraged to utilize these and other options available to him before making a public complaint.
Mr. Kissoon also raised a query about one Mr. Raymond Persaud, who is related to him, that he (Mr. Persaud) has not been receiving bills for four months and when a disconnection crew visited him, he subsequently sent his uncle to the office to ascertain his bill sum but he was turned away.
Based on our investigations, it is believed that the man showed up at or nearing the time of office closure for the day and made a payment the following day. Nevertheless, we did not disconnect Mr. Persaud’s water service.
Our records also show that the account fitting the description of Mr. Persaud’s home has been operating a car wash under a domestic account, when he should have been registered as a commercial customer. He was therefore utilizing a large quantity of water monthly.
We also found that although he was paying monthly, he had arrears totaling over $12,000. It should be noted once again that we did not receive a report from the customer about non-delivery of bills.
We wish to use this opportunity to remind all customers that they can raise any query or concern with us via our Customer Call Center number: 227-8701, WhatsApp number 620-1667 or the GWI office nearest to them.
For persons wishing to view their balance, they can sign up for monthly E-billing by sending their email address to our WhatsApp number. Additional options for queries and ascertaining your account balance include our live chat, available on our website at www.gwiguyana.gy, entering your account number via our website or sending us a message on social media. Our Customer Services teams countrywide also issue reminder notices to customers and make calls to owing customers, prior to disconnecting.

Regards,
Management of GWI