THE National Water Commission (NWC) is banking on debt collectors it engaged last year to wring out over $1 billion owed to it by customers even as it struggles to cauterise revenue losses of between $3.5 billion and $4.5 billion monthly due to illegal connections.

Officials of the cash-strapped utility company speaking during yesterday’s virtual public education forum titled ‘The Impact of Water Theft on the NWC and You’ said, for 2020, 4,507 cases were assigned to debt collectors with the value of those accounts being $1 billion. It said so far only 590 of those cases have been closed.

In the meantime, the NWC said between January and April of this year 21,771 accounts had been targeted for disconnection, with 17,862 being disconnected. According to the entity, 9,349 of that amount have since been reconnected after payments were made.

The NWC disclosed that the value of the total targeted disconnections would have been $2.26 billion and the value of the actual disconnections $1.96 billion. It has so far collected only $500 million.

Yesterday, Horace Binns, revenue manager at the NWC, chided legitimate customers for hitting out at teams conducting disconnections.

“Too often we go on the street and we are doing an operation and paying customers are sometimes disgruntled as we are disconnecting illegal consumers, and it is to be noted that it is the same illegal consumers who are sometimes the reason communities are without water,” Binns pointed out.

Communications manager for the NWC Andrew Canon stressed that water theft through illegal connections reduces the flow of pressure to paying customers. He further noted that approximately 50 per cent of disconnected supplies are restored illegally.

NWC Regional Manager Jermaine Jackson said individuals stealing from the NWC in instances are also stealing from the light and power company, Jamaica Public Service, presenting an increased risk to disconnection teams of electrical shocks.

And NWC Receivables Manager Raymond Nesbeth said the company’s receivables were about $43 billion, with customers indebted to the company for over a year owing just over $32 billion of that figure. “This points to our delinquent customers resulting in a direct impact to our receivables,” he said.