Dionne Rose, Business Reporter

Workers at the the NWC Kingston Metropolitan Area Water Supply project at Job Lane, Spanish Town, May 8. NWC is spending $400 million on a metering project to better track water usage. - Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer

The National Water Commission (NWC) estimates that only two-thirds of its customers have well-functioning meters, but in two years hopes to take the numbers within the standard set by its regulator.

Under a $400 million programme, the NWC has begun installing some 100,000 new units that it says should rid the system of malfuntioning meters.

More important, the water utility wants to keep the Office of Utilities Regulation happy.

"There is the bigger issue where the Office of Utilities Regulation has also mandated that the commission ensure that some 85 per cent of all our customer accounts should have functioning meters," said Buchanan.

"And under that standard, whichwas re-enforced again in the recently established standards by the OUR, we are required to increase the number of water meters that are in the ground."

The NWC has 450,000 accounts on its books, only 332,600 of them active accounts, but only 67 per cent are efficiently metered, according to Buchanan.

The majority of its ac-counts are categorised as domestic, 311,700 representing 55 per cent of revenues; another 19,900 of commercial connections account for 42 per cent of revenues; and other customers such as schools and hospitals number 990 and three per cent of revenues.

The commission, Buchanan says, services some two million people, not all of whom, he adds, are legally connected to the system.

Not only will the project replace old meters, but also install units where none now exists but customer accounts are active.

Better tracking

A higher ratio of metered clients will allow the commission to better track consumption, but Buchanan was unable to say just how much revenue is lost because of improper metering.

The current programme, as Buchanan indicated, is a continuation of work already began.

Last year, for example, the commission replaced 30,000 defective meters in the western parishes, spanning Trelawny to Westmoreland.

A similar exercise continues in Kingston and St Andrew, where 11,000 of 20,000 new meter installations are already in.

That project, which is costing $80 million, started last year July, and though the NWC has 9,000 meters to go, Buchanan said the agency was in the process of wrapping up the exercise.

Buchanan says under the two- year programme, not all meters would require changing. The projects targets those in excess of seven years old and other non-compromised units on the books to be changed.

dionne.rose@gleanerjm.com