MWCI, Maynilad told to explain water bills

AFter receiving over 400 complaints from customers since last month, the metropolitan waterworks and sewerage system (mwss) said it has ordered maynilad water services Inc. (mwsi) and manila water co. Inc. (mwci) to explain the surge in water bills.

mwss chief regulator Patrick Lester N. ty said a Notice to explain was issued by the agency’s regulatory office (ro) to the two private water concessionaires on July 23.

“the concessionaires are expected to resolve these observed violations, and issue an official explanation within this week,” ty said in a statement.

He said the mwss ro has received over 400 billing complaints from the concessionaires’ customers since June.

It may be recalled that meter reading and billing activities have been suspended, and the average billing policy has been applied during the enhanced community quarantine (ecq) and modified ecq periods.

Prior to the resumption of the concessionaires’ read-and-bill operations the previous month, the mwss-ro has put in place various measures to mitigate the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the financial situation of customers and to prevent bill shock.

mwss said the concessionaires have been ordered to explain their noncompliance to several of the directives that have been agreed upon by the agency and the water concessionaires.

this includes the directive to verify the consumption patterns of customers, check for irregularities and automatically withhold any statement of Account with observed significant deviation from these patterns for further investigation and necessary adjustment.

the water concessionaires also did not communicate effectively, and in a timely manner, all information regarding the directives to customers and concerned stakeholders.

“the mwss ro will continue to address customer concerns regarding the concessionaires’ services, as well as actively monitor and validate the concessionaires’ compliance with the agency’s strategies and directives. the agency assures the public that sanctions will be imposed over violations of such policies that aim to protect public welfare,” ty said.

Reply

MANILA water said it is now preparing the letter of response to the notice to explain issued by the mwss-ro. of the complaints it received, the company said only 0.03 percent remains unresolved.

“we will be recommending to the regulatory office a solution to the remaining .03 percent of unresolved issues due to after-the-meter leaks. we need the regulators permission to effect these solutions,” the company said in a statement.

Based on data gathered by manila water from June 1 to July 27, out of the 1 million customers of the company, 7 percent or 73,588 sought clarification on their billing.

“of these, 90 percent were resolved by the call center or by business area frontliners. only 0.7 percent of customers, or 7,937, have cases that were endorsed for further handling and of these, 6,246 were verified to have been billed based on actual consumption of customers," the company said.

“there are 379 cases wherein the spike in billing was caused by undetected underground leak in the customers’ plumbing system while only 57 customers had their bills adjusted.” it added.

manila water also said it followed all the guidelines issued by the mwss-ro on average billing during the lockdown and the actual billing after the quarantine restrictions were eased as well as installment payments and disconnection grace period.