With only 38 per cent of eligible voters coming out to vote in 2020, it is clear that the tenets of our democracy are not resonating with the majority of our people. What is more, 70 per cent of average Jamaicans feel that elected officials are corrupt. I tested how Jamaicans truly felt about Members of Parliament by daring to compare our salary scale to that of Barbados and Singapore in the column ‘You get what you pay for’. (Jamaica Observer, October 24, 2021)

Though not startling, the comments were visceral and indicated how I knew we were viewed bythe people we serve.

Our agility as leaders to pivot quickly and make decisions for the progress of all Jamaicans across green and orange lines will determine whether we merely survive with mediocre standards as a nation, or prevail, moving our working class to the middle class and our middle class to the owners of capital.

We must change systems that impede our citizenry’s daily quality of life. Unfortunately, for many rural Jamaicans, some of these systems surround the lack of access to potable water, the high cost of food and living expenses, and the inability to afford quality health care.

This week, all Jamaicans understood the distress of having no water flowing from their pipes when the National Water Commission (NWC) workers went on strike. But imagine if this was the reality every day?

Jamaica has won the award for the best-quality drinking water in the region three times in a row in 2012, 2013, and 2014 from the Caribbean Water and Wastewater Association. This commodity is our good old tap water if you can get it. As for many rural Jamaicans, piped water is a luxury item and not a fundamental human right in 2022. Sadly though, the system just isn’t working.

Here is an example of what I mean. It has been almost eight years since the Higgin Town water project in the constituency I represent was approved and over one decade since I started the lobbying process to get water to the people in this district.

In 2008, I met with Minister Horace Chang to outline water problems in Moneague and the need to re-establish the Green Park well in Claremont.

Six years later, Minister Ian Hales announced to Parliament the equipping of the Green Park well and construction of a pumping station. The project was to be implemented in two phases, beginning the first quarter of the 2015/2016 budget and would provide water to Higgin Town and surrounding areas. However, it was never started.

In May 2016, I met with the President of the NWC Mark Barnett and the St Ann NWC parish manager to follow up on the water projects and other outstanding projects approved. Despite my constant interventions to the NWC since that meeting, nothing happened

On June 23, 2018, the residents of Higgin Town made their pleas openly in a public demonstration, and I supported them.

Subsequently, I met with Minister Karl Samuda and his technical team in the Ministry of Water to request an update on the water projects for St Ann South Easern.

In March 2019, Minister Samuda announced in Parliament again the same project and said the money was in place.

Shortly afterwards, I met with Minister Pearnel Charles Jr and the technocrats from the ministry for a status report.

On July 22, 2020, the Higgin Town Water Project finally started, but was abruptly halted. To date, the project is incomplete. Whenever I called to inquire about its resumption, the NWC responded that it had insufficient resources to purchase additional pipes. The project requires approximately 900 lengths of pipe, which is roughly 5.4 kilometres.

The system for improving the capital infrastructure for water distribution appears disproportionate as, while the people of Higgin Town still cannot get 900 lengths of pipes after several years of commitment, my neighbour to the north-west announced $1 billion worth of water projects within one year. It begs the question: Which communities are given priority for capital expenditure by the NWC and on what basis?

So what do we need to do to give all our people access to potable water?

The NWC is a statutory organisation formed in 1980 by combining the Kingston and St Andrew Water Commission and the rurally centred National Water Authority. The organisation has the mandate to provide high-quality potable water and sewerage services to residential and commercial customers cost-effectively and sustainably.

The company states it currently “supplies over 75 per cent of the populace with piped water and 18 per cent with sewerage service through approximately 1,000 water supply facilities, wells, water treatment plants, pumping stations, and more than 11,000 kilometres of water mains. These are in addition to 68 islandwide sewerage treatment plants.” (Jamaica Public Bodies Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure Ending March 2023)

In parts of rural Jamaica, very few would disagree that the National Water Commission is ineffective at delivering promised results.

The NWC collected $37.7 billion in revenue last year. Although it is a capital-intensive company, its wage bill represents 48.3 per cent of this annual income or $18 billion, electricity 24 per cent or $9 billion, and its combined finance costs 12 per cent or $4.5 billion. Additionally, the company’s bad debt provision is 15 per cent or $5.8 billion.

These numbers represent 99.3 per cent of the NWC’s revenue and have not allowed for repair and maintenance, distribution costs, depreciation, and amortisation.

Furthermore, one major problem facing the NWC is that more than 50 per cent of its water supply goes to waste within its pipes. For example, in Portmore, the average system input is nearly 36,000 cubic metres daily, of which the company loses roughly 21,000 or 58.3 per cent of non-revenue water to leaks and theft. (National Water Commission 2020)

With their current business model, waste, and theft, the NWC will never have enough money to implement the necessary programmes for the people in Higgin Town or anywhere else in deep rural Jamaica. This reality is untenable, and it’s time we stop kicking this problem down the road and take some progressive decisions concerning the operations of the NWC.

As the Government seeks to redress the salary discrepancies of the NWC workers urgently, they must also use this opportunity to implement meaningful solutions for the transparent and equitable distribution of water resources across Jamaica.

Lisa Hanna is Member of Parliament for St Ann South Eastern, People’s National Party spokesperson on foreign affairs and foreign trade, and a former Cabinet member.