DESPITE months without running water in some communities after Hurricane Melissa, some Jamaicans have continued receiving rising bills, prompting members of parliament (MPs) on Wednesday to demand answers from the National Water Commission (NWC) over a billing system they say they do not understand.

The issue surfaced at Parliament’s Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) as MPs pressed the NWC on why customers were being charged during extended outages and how rebates and adjustments are supposed to work. The concerns come amid continued scrutiny of recovery efforts following Hurricane Melissa, which struck the island on October 28, 2025.

Clarendon Northern MP Wavell Hinds told the committee he had been inundated with complaints from residents who say they are paying for services they cannot reliably access.

“I have had customers complaining agonisingly about receiving bills consistently, and not being able to access the service consistently. And as such, I know your billing system comes with sewerage and all the rest of it, which people have to pay for, but they have not been receiving any water in their lines,” he expressed.

In response, Delano Williams, NWC’s corporate public relations manager, outlined what he said is a two-track approach for customers affected by outages.

“So what the NWC does for the customers impacted by water outages, we approach it in two ways. The metre reading will reconcile any charges that may have been estimated during the hurricane period when our teams were not out. We’ve also taken into consideration where there is a possible impact, for instance, by customers experiencing breaks, pipeline breaks, where water comes back. They may not be at home, the house was damaged, the property was damaged, but the water is now running to waste. And we have asked those customers, and we’ll continue to publish, that we will offer a facility for those accounts to be examined, and some kind of discretion be applied for cases such as those,” Williams explained.

He also indicated that for customers who were billed on estimates during the disruption, the NWC intends to identify the outage window and apply write-offs in the worst-hit areas once restoration dates are confirmed.

However, Williams cautioned that even when relief is due, it may not appear immediately.

“The adjustment process, while it’s systematic, also requires a manual review just to verify the period, and so they may not necessarily see it immediately on the first bill after water is restored,” he noted.

The public frustration was underscored later in the meeting when St James Central MP Heroy Clarke said even he struggles to make sense of the charges, warning that the confusion is far worse for ordinary customers.

“Sometimes it is mind-boggling. We just pay the bill because I don’t want any cass-cass at the gate. So we just pay the bill. But, for example, the hurricane was in October [and for] November, December, and part of January, we were still without water. But yet you get a bill that keeps climbing…. And I can’t understand because you said to us that we would have gotten a rebate, but I still cannot not see it,” he expressed.

“So to the man out there, John Public, it is even worse. Because the story is told, and my colleagues will tell you. They hear it every day. ‘MP, boss, we don’t get no water but we seeing a bill. What are we paying for?’ And we are at a point wherein we can’t explain it because we still do not understand how it is done,” Clarke added.

Following Clarke’s plea, Williams then sought to break down the core issue driving many complaints.

He explained that customers can continue receiving bills while service is disrupted because the account remains active, and some bills are generated using estimates, commonly known as “flat rate” billing when meters cannot be read.

“This applies to persons who do not have a metre or they’ve had a metre that is no longer accessible, whether it’s damaged or we just can’t get to the area to read it. Since the passage of the storm, those persons would still, because they’re active customers, the system would still produce a bill for you using the average of your previous consumption and that applies for like your last three consumption amounts. So persons coming into November, December, you’re either still active, you’re still waiting for supply or your supply may have come back briefly,” Williams further explained.

Still, Clarke pressed the point many Jamaicans make daily, asking, if an estimated bill is meant to be based on normal usage, why would it rise during a period of reduced or zero supply?

Williams described unusual increases as an “anomaly” and said bills can shift depending on whether the billing period deviates from the standard cycle, which may trigger proration. He added that metered customers can also see distorted bills if readings are delayed or if storm-related damage affected usage patterns, but said proper readings should eventually reflect what truly happened at the property.

NWC Acting Vice-President of operations Herman Fagan acknowledged the scale of public concern and said the agency needs to improve how it explains bills that arrive before adjustments are processed.

“The fact is, that is what is the general feeling, so it’s something that we will have to take away, to look back at… we’re not hiding from it, in terms of how we basically communicate when the customers get these bills, before the adjustments are done, because I know to an extent some systems are manual, manual adjustments that have to be done. So I think one of the takeaways from this discussion this morning is for us to basically go back with our billing team and your different regional teams and look at how we can enhance the communication in that regard,” he said.