LUCEA, Hanover — The Hanover Municipal Corporation (HMC) is challenging a more than $90-million charge the State-run National Water Commission (NWC) says it owes for overdue standpipe bills. In fact, Mayor of Lucea Sheridan Samuels insists that a third of the water they are being billed for was not consumed.

Eyebrows were raised during HMC’s monthly meeting last Thursday when the issue of the overdue bill was broached. The NWC had sent the bill to the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, which then asked the HMC for an assessment and explanation.

“A total of $97 million they say we have in arrears, and interestingly, when we go through the listing the bigger amounts, like $3 million, are areas where no standpipes are and no water is coming through the lines,” Mayor Samuels, who represents Cauldwell Division and was elected on an Opposition People’s National Party ticket, told the meeting.

Residents, he said, are similarly being billed for water they have not used.

“Just like how we are treating the citizens in areas where lines run — like in the Ginger Hill and Haughton Grove areas, but no water coming through it — every month this is what is happening to the standpipes that are in the parish,” Samuels argued.

According to the mayor, the HMC had probed the issue as requested by the local government ministry and the NWC has a lot of questions to answer.