THE EDITOR, Sir:
I HAVE been a customer in the Angels community in the Spanish Town district of the monopoly National Water Commission since 1999. Initially, there was reasonably good service, lock-offs now and then yes, but tolerable.
About a year ago, extensive work was undertaken resulting in a huge tank being erected on a hill within the community. The grapevine has it that the tank was provided to serve the existing housing scheme and two additional schemes which were under construction. This "move", I gather, should enable us continuous and regular water supply.
Ha! Since the tank has been commissioned, the residents of the first housing scheme in the new development have been experiencing sheer "poor service". Examples of the experiences include:
severely low water pressure, so low that a decent shower (water pressure enough to allow you to ease up off the wall) after 6 a.m. is almost luxury. The grapevine has it that the three schemes are now being supplied through the tank, and the water goes across the road to the two newer schemes first then the overflow flows back to us.
each time there is a power outage or anything disrupting our trickle, it takes several calls to the NWC office to get a response. Oftentimes, the information provided is received as NEWS to them. The grapevine also has it that the new system should operate in such a way that in the event there is a power outage then the water supply would not be affected.
Now I have some concerns:
First, I am a customer of the NWC. As a result, I am billed monthly for water consumption and a term called "service". No system is perfect so we expect interruptions but the service should not be the exception, it should be the norm.
Second, the silence from my supplier on the matter is actually deafening, as we only hear from the "vine".
It doesn't matter to me who are the partners in the new system. I have a contract and an account with the NWC who really is accountable to me. The NWC needs to recognise the need and importance of addressing this problem and adding some public relations.
To make matters worse, on one occasion when I called about the low water pressure, the NWC representative suggested that I purchase a tank for personal use. Let me quickly emphasise that I did not consider the utterance as rude; what I heard through those words is that "from where I (NWC employee) stand, it nuh look like nutten a go gwaan fi oonu or fi now". Again, the man did not say this last piece, his sympathetic tone suggested it.
My question is what's up with our water pressure NWC?
While I'm at it, on another note, a word of advice for the management of the NWC .
Sound management practice does not allow unpaid accounts to continue to escalate. For example, if you are unable to collect escalating three or four digits from a customer, how then do you expect to collect from the same continuously delinquent customer when the debt continues to increase by another digit?
A bet yuh any money dem people deh 'ave supa water pressure.
I am, etc.,
NWC CUSTOMER WITHOUT CHOICE
