WASA PLEADS FOR $26B

The Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) with a continuing loss through leaks from ageing sections of its distrubtion system of more than 30 per cent of its daily water production has estimated that it needs an injection of $26 billion by 2020 if it is to improve its service and provide water for all of the country. Already its deficit to 2002 was a staggering $5.8 billion.

The $26 billion requested has been broken down into approximately $16.5 billion for the water sector and $6.3 billion for what it has referred to as “institutional strengthening.” Currently, WASA, with internally generated revenues falling far short of annual expenditure, has had to depend on Government guaranteed loans and overdraft financing — a euphemism for State subsidies designed to comply with International Monetary Fund requirements — to help it limp along.

WASA’s problems, in which water loss has been a crucial factor, include a relatively low rate charged for the commodity, indeed one of the lowest in the region, substantial water theft through illegal connections, considerable over-staffing, and a work force all too often slow to respond to urgent calls for the repair of leaking water mains. In addition, there has been a reluctance to enforce a regulation which allowed the public utility the right to charge households a nominal rate for water, once the homes were within a quarter mile of a standpipe. Of course, who would willingly pay for water, when it does not flow through the pipes?

These problems have been aggravated further by the refusal in 1987 by the former Public Utilities Commission, forerunner to the Regulated Industries Commission, to allow WASA to install water meters. And this although the Authority had argued that it had been proven, internationally, that where water metering was introduced water consumption had been reduced by 25 to 30 per cent. WASA had already invited notification from companies wishing to prequalify for the purchase, supply and installation of water meters, when it received the rebuff. WASA’s inefficiency, both  with respect to the maintenance of the country’s water distribution system and being overstaffed, means that the utility will have a hard time getting the public to appreciate  the need for Government to guarantee loans and overdraft facilities to it to the tune of $26 billion between now and 2020. The sad reality, however, is that finance is needed to replace leaking water mains, the construction of water reservoirs and the laying down of water mains to supply areas which today are not provided with water.

In addition the creation of new industrial estates, particularly those designed to attract and accommodate large energy-based industries, will bring with them increased demands for water. These will be impossible to meet except WASA is in a position both to increase its current water production and storage levels as well as vastly improve its capability to deliver adequate and continuous supplies of water to these estates. The same argument is valid with respect to the new housing estates and communities under construction or on the drawing board, including Government’s target of 10,000 new housing units a year for the next eight or nine years. It is a difficult situation in which we find ourselves. No one questions the need to streamline WASA and its operations, but can we really rely on the present WASA system of running its affairs?