NWC wants more revenue to improve service

ANational Water Commission (NWC) senior executive says more revenue is needed to implement the agency’s capital investment programme aimed at improving services across the island.

According to Vice-president of Engineering Garth Jackson, the NWC will have to spend more than its annual revenue of $5 billion to meet customer demand.

“That programme is going to address the shortfall in supply and the shortfall in services which we have been able to provide over the years. It will also attempt to meet the demands of our customers, which are significant,” Jackson said at the NWC’S quarterly press briefing on Wednesday.

He said one major project being carried out under the programme is the replacement of the old transmission main along Spanish Town Road, which will address challenges in the lower sections of Kingston and St Andrew.

“We are actually installing complementary secondary mains in that general location as well, in order to provide services in areas such as Waltham Park Road, Denham Town, Tivoli Gardens — all of those areas will be better served once we have completed these works,” said Jackson.

He added that the Nonrevenue Water (NRW) Reduction Programme in Kingston and St Andrew is now in the final stages.

“We are in the last few months, and we have achieved significant reductions from approximately 60 per cent non-revenue water when we started five years ago. We are now at the economic levels of non-revenue water to about 30 per cent,” he said.

Jackson also used his address to emphasise the importance of drought mitigation and conservation activities for the upcoming dry season.

“We are seeking to engage in a relationship with the consumers in order to ensure that the water which we produce is used effectively and efficiently,” he said.

He suggested that consumers should economise and reuse water so that water supplies can last until the next rainy period.

“Since the end of December, we have had significantly lower levels of rainfall. Now, 70 per cent of the water which we produce is actually from surface water sources — those tend to suffer more from the dry spell. We have to put in place measures to ensure that we don’t have a great level of challenges,” he said.

(Photo: Joseph Wellington) Longville resident Everald Smith prapares to leave the community water tank with two five-gallon bottles of water which he says he has had to fill daily, for the past 10 years, for his household. The National Water Commission is hoping that its expansion programme will prevent citizens like Smith from filling water in containers to use in homes.