The Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System-Regulatory Office (MWSS-RO) on Wednesday said that under the revised concession agreements (RCAs), it can now impose more stringent penalties and bigger fines against errant water concessionaires.
“At present, it only takes three days. After three days, they can already be slapped with penalties based on number of days that they are in violation of their service obligations. We are preparing the IRR (implementing rules and regulations) which will be their guide on how this is implemented. We will have a public consultation this coming Wednesday,” Patrick Ty, MWSS-RO chief regulator, told reporters.
Ty said that prior to the new RCAs, concessionaires can only be penalized 15 days from violating their service obligations.
He added that under the RCA and apart from the violation of service obligations, the failure to meet target non-revenue water (NRW) for a year may also be penalized.
“Before the NRW was not included in their service obligations. If they did not reach the NRW service targets, there were no financial penalties. It was only included in the rate rebasing,” Ty added.
According to him, financial penalties issued against the concessionaires will then be rebated to affected customers with the distinction that NRW penalties be rebated for all customers of a concessionaire while penalties for service interruptions will only be refunded to customers in specific areas affected.
“It is their responsibility to provide service. Before, we have had a hard time imposing penalties so we looked for a way to resolve problems. Now, they have more incentives even if the penalties are also bigger as even the NRW is being monitored. They now have incentives to improve their service,” Ty said further.
