We often wonder whether our leaders are serious about running this country efficiently. We don’t doubt their patriotism. What we have a problem with is their competence and commitment to preventing waste.

Our thoughts on these matters were revived last week when the Government proudly announced that it had entered into a US$4.5-million five-year agreement with Israeli company Miya to reduce non-revenue water, which, we are told, is now estimated at $108 million, or 53 per cent of the volume that enters the National Water Commission’s (NWC’s) supply and distribution networks.

The Israeli firm, the country was told, will conduct an audit of the NWC’s network to assess how best to reduce its losses to 37 per cent within two years; 30 per cent within three years; and 20 per cent in the fifth year.

According to the Government, the project is performance-based, and as such Miya will be paid only if the non-revenue water reduction targets are met.

The aim of the contract is for more of the water produced by the NWC to go to legitimate customers.

“Miya will implement strategies and action to enable the NWC to improve its performance and maximise the collection of income for the water it produces,” Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller is reported as saying at the contract signing.

No business can survive if it is losing just over 50 per cent of its products. That kind of loss is simply not sustainable.

The question we must ask is, why are the people running the NWC allowed to continue in their jobs, given their inability to plug this loss? Why must the country pay a foreign firm US$4.5 million to do a job that is rightly the NWC’s?

We have long argued in this space that a large part of the problem affecting the NWC is that its operations are most inefficient.

Anyone doubting that conclusion need only reflect on the fact that a few years ago the NWC forked out $26 million to pay a foreign firm to assist in the preparation of a rate increase submission to the Office of Utilities Regulation.

Not only was that a callous decision taken in a struggling economy, it also demonstrated at level of carelessness with taxpayers’ money.

At the time that irresponsible decision was disclosed, we had agreed with the then Opposition spokesman on water, Dr Horace Chang, that the $26 million would have been better spent on improving the NWC’s procurement and implementation capacity and to speed up its K-factor-funded projects.

The K-factor, we were told, was a programme that the NWC had pledged to use to generate funds to finance specific types of projects, such as reducing the level of non-revenue water; rehabilitating/retiring selected wastewater treatment plants; and expanding the sewerage network in Kingston and St Andrew.

It is obvious that the NWC, as it is presently structured, is unable to deliver on its mandate. Maybe the solution lies in having Miya, who are said to be experts in global urban water efficiency solutions, running the NWC.