Jonique Gaynor, Staff Reporter

Despite several cam-paigns urging cooperation, the National Water Commission (NWC) continues to face problems with customers who refuse to pay for the service.

Corporate Public Relations Manager Charles Buchanan says the company is hampered by those who connect illegally to their systems. He added also that there were some customers who initially had legal connections but subsequently failed to pay their bills. Buchanan says the problem is islandwide, but admits that the gravity of the situation varies from area to area. "In some com-munities, the number of illegal connections is high," he said, "It is popular in areas where there has been unplanned development - in squatter-type communities."

He says in other areas, the incidence of illegal reconnections or failure to pay is very high. To illustrate just how much of a problem the company is having with illegal reconnections, he said, "Fifty per cent of the accounts that have been disconnected, have at one point seen an attempted reconnection." He added that they revisit disconnected accounts with regularity, and that there is a high rate of illegal reconnection.

Like the Jamaica Public Service Company, Buchanan says the NWC had an amnesty, where they invited delinquents to regularise their accounts. He says this enjoyed "some degree of success" but added that it may appear like the company is "rewarding persons for negative behaviour." He added also that there were some people who benefited from the amnesty, slipped back into arrears shortly after, and called to ask when there would be another one.

Rewards for consistency

The company also implemented a positive reward campaign where customers who were consistent with their payments, could win motor vehicles and airline tickets. Buchanan says the company is also considering having more campaigns and offering more rewards.

In an effort to recover some of the revenue lost, the NWC is trying to employ a variety of measures. The company hires town criers to warn of dis-connections, uses contracted collection agents to physically go and persuade people to pay and of course, brings delinquents before the court.

Though these measures reap some level of success, Buchanan says "it is becoming costly to collect. We are spending money to collect for a service that people have already benefited from. We ."