As the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) moves to collect some $500 million currently owed by errant customers, chairman Romney Thomas has promised that before year’s end properties will be seized and placed for sale in a bid to collect outstanding debts.
Thomas was speaking at WASA’s commissioning ceremony for the McKai Booster Station at the Lady Young Road, Morvant, yesterday.
Asked what percentage of customers were in arrears, Thomas said it was difficult to pinpoint but noted it was a mixture of residential and commercial customers. On a time-line for the actual start of seizure of property, Thomas said WASA was “working” with property owners so as to come to a resolution.
“We want to give people the opportunity to come in and talk to us and try to enter into a payment plan. We are not going to be draconian about it. And for those who don’t want to do it we will take that next step,” Thomas said.
“Right now it is a warning, but we have to collect the outstanding debt. It is way too much debt we have outside there and we are struggling to pay contractors. In terms of the sale of property... by the end of the year we would be advertising properties for sale.”
This is not the first time the company has threatened such action to clear of its customer debt, but such plan is yet to meterialise. Yesterday, Thomas pointed out that WASA was probably the only public utility authorised to sell a property for outstanding arrears, as outlined in the Rate and Recoveries Act. He said, however, that they will most likely target seizure of properties for customers who have the biggest debts first.
Public Utilities Minister Robert Le Hunte said the bigger picture was that all citizens must appreciate that the price of water was one of the lowest in the Western Hemisphere, as each household had to pay a mere $3 a day for water. But he said the consumption pattern of citizens was four times that of other countries.
“If there are individuals who are not paying their bills at this time, that’s part of the reason why the country has subsidised WASA to the tune of almost $3 billion,” Le Hunte said, adding the country should be “crying shame” on customers who are not paying their bills with the rates currently as low as they are.
The minister said only 38 per cent of the population currently had access to pipe-borne water on a 24 hours/seven days a week basis.
The booster station was initially estimated at $3.1 million but reportedly cost the Public Utilities Ministry $2.2 million.
Thomas said it would provide water to the McKai community, which has been without water since its inception some 50 years ago. The community comprises some 400 people or 100 households. The project was done not by contractors but solely by WASA employees and Thomas paid kudos to them.
WASA’s director of programme and change management Denise Lee Sing-Pereira said the booster station was the brainchild of deceased WASA senior manager of North-West operations Derek Hookers, who was shot dead in 2015. To date his murder has remained unsolved.
“Derek’s commitment to the Mc Kai Lands community has been demonstrated through his successful completion of Phase One of the project, which entailed the laying of 1.5 kilometre PVC pipeline. Derek, however, died before his goal of providing a first time water supply to the community was realised,” Lee Sing-Pereira said.
She said the station has a design capacity of 135,360 gallons of water per day and is fed from the Picton Reservoir via the El Socorro Booster Station.