GWI records increase in revenue collection in 2018 …moves to install more company data collection system

Jan 01, 2019 News

The Guyana Water Incorporated, (GWI), has recorded in excess of $4 Billion in revenue collection in 2018.
According to statistics presented by GWI, the sum represents a ten percent increase when compared to the same period in the previous year.
The data was presented to media operatives at the GWI’s annual end -of- year press conference held yesterday.
According to the information, GWI has continuously invested in the capacity building and institutional strengthening and research agenda of the nation’s potable.
Further, the water company pointed to a decline in the monies owed by customers — instead of $5B, the customer base now owes $3.6 B.
In addition, GWI boasted of 73 % of its customers now receiving 24-hour service. The company also added over 10,000 new customers to its clientele.
Managing of Director of GWI, Richard Van West-Charles noted that a significant investment was made in upgrading the technology to increase the efficiency of the company -at present over 20,000 customers are outfitted with smart water meters.
He noted that with the usage of technology GWI has been able to keep track pump stations.

Managing of Director of GWI, Richard Van West –Charles

“This is important because previously we depended on operators to tell us which of the pump stations are not working. Right now, because of the electronic loggers, the Directors have access to information on phones and laptops on which the pump station is turned off.
“It is for this reason that the board has approved the ICT unit which is to equip us to become more technologically advanced.”
Van West-Charles further noted that the current manual meter reading has led to some errors in meter data collection.
In 2019, the Managing Director therefore noted that more automatic meter reading technology and smart meters will be installed for the efficient measurement and record-keeping.
He said that there are many implications of errors with the manual reading of meters. If a meter reader wrongly records the digits on the meter, this leads to erroneous billings.
Van West Charles told the gathering, too, the mobile bill payment application has been beneficial to both customers and the utility company.
Management of the state-owned entity has been working towards upgrading its billing software.
Van West Charles, had previously disclosed that GWI started looking at other options to that 2008-installed software, making it on par with the type of billing technology available in the US.
Additionally, the company had the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), approve increases in rates and tariffs for customers
The last approved increases occurred over a decade ago, in 2005.
With regards to the rates, PUC announced that residential consumers, who have meters, from October 1, 2018 will be paying a fixed charge of $250 monthly with consumers in the $60- $90 category to pay $86 per m3. All other consumers will pay a monthly consumption charge of $112 per m3.
From October 1, 2019, the fix charge will be $500 monthly.
Unmetered residential consumers will pay a monthly fixed charge of $250 with the monthly consumption charge to be $1,100.
From October 1, 2019, the monthly fixed charges will go up to $500 with the monthly consumption charge of $1,450.
For pensioners, whether they have meters or not, there will be no monthly fixed charges.
However, metered pensioners will from October 1, 2018 pay a monthly consumption charge of $86 for each. From October 1, 2019, the charge will increase to $112 for m3.
On the other hand, unmetered pensioners will have to pay a monthly consumption charge of $740.
For non-residential unmetered consumers, from October 1, 2018, the monthly fixed charge will be $250 with the consumption charge to be $125 per m3.
The monthly fixed charge in this category, from October 1, 2019, will increase to $500 with the monthly consumption charge to be $150 per m3.

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