MONTEGO BAY, St James — President of the National Water Commission (NWC) Mark Barnett has announced that, among the policies that the utility company will be pursuing to push revenue in order to improve service performance, is the discontinuation of writing off customers’ debts.

The NWC is owed billions of dollars by delinquent customers.

Speaking during the commissioning of the recently renovated NWC customer service office at Bevin Avenue here last Wednesday, Barnett explained that the time had come for customers to take the responsibility of conservation into their own hands.

“…Part of our strategy, as well, is we are doing away with write-offs. We are putting the responsibility back into the hands of the customer because that is where it ought to begin. Too often, if you are careless, you then come to NWC [and say,] ‘I want a write off,’ “ Barnett argued.

He, however, noted that, in extreme circumstances, the writing off of debts could be considered.

“Certainly, if I have a pensioner who can’t afford, we will extend our own consideration in that regard,” Barnett pointed out.

He detailed that another strategy being employed is a programme to meter every supply as it is known that customers with unmetered connections usually use three times the amount of water as their metered counterparts.

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. And so our job is to ensure that meters are in place at every service connection,” the NWC president said.

He further argued: “Customers who have unmetered supply or what we call defective meters use thrice as much as who are metered. There is no motivation to turn off the little cistern around the back where you have the wash tub, there is no motivation to correct the toilet leak, there is no motivation to do the things that will conserve water.”

Barnett pointed out that the time has come when “we have to start to look at NWC as a business.

“There are greater demands on us, in terms of the work that we need to do, the investments that are to be done, so we can’t be giving it away before we make the investments. And so we have to take strategic decisions that will allow us to use the revenue that we get to do the extensions that are required to better serve the people who are not yet served. And those are the strategies to which we are embarking on. And so I want you to join us and help us sing our song, encourage our neighbours to just be responsible,” he contended.

He underscored that the NWC should be able to successfully operate without international expertise.

“The point is, we want to ensure that, at the end of the day, there should be no one coming from abroad to tell us how to run the utility. We here know what to do, we just need to do it. We just have to have the courage to do it and the motivation and the support structure to ensure that it is always done,” the NWC president said.

Meanwhile, Barnett shared that the water company experienced a serious fiscal challenge during the initial phase of the novel coronavirus pandemic, but said that “things are loosening up a bit.

“Can you you imagine running an organisation that, on average, my bills are $2.7 billion… $2.8 billion and I was just able to collect $1.8 billion in any one month. How do you manage that? And so, even with NWC’s effort to offer some amount of customer care where we give some discount with an intention that it would have been enticing enough for customers to pay up what is owed, it wasn’t sufficient and I understand that as well. Because you are going through a pandemic, everybody is watching every dollar that they have. Why give it up when they can keep it and you don’t know what is happening later on,” he asked.

He lauded the members of staff whose efforts resulted in increased collection.

“When you move from below 60 per cent, on average, up to 87 per cent collection rate it speaks to the effort, sticktuitiveness, and the commitment that the staff has demonstrated, and [that they] understand the urgency of having that cash in NWC,” Barnett expressed.