Latest update April 18th, 2024 12:59 AM
Aug 13, 2014 News
By Rabindra Rooplall
With customer arrears totaling $1.4B, the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) is facing a cash crisis and the company has commenced a new Monthly Billing Programme from August 1, 2014 for metered customers. Hence, metered customers will receive a monthly bill for water service from this month.
Yesterday at the company’s corporate complex, Vlissengen Road, Executive Director of Finance Jaigopaul Ram noted that the company is going on an aggressive campaign to collect outstanding sums, since 50 percent of its customers have not being paying up.
According to Customer Services Manager, Jeanette Thomas, the change from quarterly to monthly billing is meant to improve the overall efficiency of bill delivery and provide customers with a more reliable billing schedule.
“We have listened to our customers’ recommendations for monthly billing,” said Thomas, “hence the new monthly schedule will simplify our bill delivery processes and align GWI with the other utilities. Our goal is to motivate our customers to make payments on time and provide them with a monthly bill that is due with their other monthly expenses, hence making it easier for customers to remember their water service payments”.
Another goal of the new programme is to minimize instances of estimated bills. The Customer Services Manager explained that “every effort is being made to avoid billing metered customers on an estimated charge, this occurs when our meter readers cannot gain access to customers’ premises and an estimated amount is generated based on past consumption trends. To reduce this, monthly billing offers customers a more consistent routine in which meter readers will visit their homes and a bill will be generated within 30 days. We urge customers to ensure GWI meter readers are allowed access to their meters since this is pivotal to minimizing estimated bills”.
Meanwhile, Thomas said that illegal connections affect the network and contaminate the water which affects consumers.
“We are appealing to customers to not reconnect their connections but if you see someone doing it then they are endangering you also and the entire community. If you see someone doing it please contact GWI and let them know they are endangering you also.”
She explained that for the company to manage the monthly billing, it has employed additional meter readers for the 70,000 metered customers countrywide. The company says it has sufficient staff to executive all of its operations.
Meter readers who are unable to access meters will leave letters urging customers to make contact with the nearest GWI location so that their service consumption can be inputted to avoid estimated billing.
The overarching aim of the Monthly Billing Programme is to provide customers with more consistent and convenient bill delivery that is on par with other major utilities.
The company has more than 10,000 customers on its database that are listed as disconnected.
“We are appealing to those customers who would have been recently disconnected to come in and make arrangements with us for payments,” Thomas said.
The utility company also plans to launch monthly billing for unmetered customers in 2015. For more information on GWI’s Monthly Billing Programme, customers can contact GWI’s Customer Services Call Centre on 227-8701/03/04, email: [email protected].
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