Dear Editor,
GWI wishes to respond to the letter titled ‘Unacceptable Service from GWI’ published in SN on Saturday, September 20. The letter contained several erroneous statements which the company wishes to refute. The following is an account of the recent interaction between Mr GHK Lall and GWI:
Mr Lall contacted GWI’s Cus-tomer Services Call Centre during the last week of August seeking assistance with a sewerage overflow at his residence. He was provided with a reference number and advised that the complaint may take three working days to be rectified.
GWI’s Sanitation Department was advised of the complaint and preparations were made to visit the customer’s home. However, during the week in question, GWI’s Sanitation Teams received an unusually high number of complaints regarding sewerage overflows.
According to Sanitation Manager, GWI, Rensforde Joseph, despite public education initiatives, the Sanita-tion Department continues to experience sewerage overflows which have resulted from abuse of the system by customers.
Mr Joseph explained that during the week in which Mr Lall’s complaint was received, the sanitation team was tasked with a massive sewerage overflow in the city which resulted from a blockage consisting of garbage, including plastics, condoms and clothing items, which were dumped directly via sewerage chambers by residents. The Sanitation Manager is in possession of images indicating the significant amount of garbage dumped by residents via the sewerage chamber as well as the large amount of manpower which was required to remove the blockage.
Due to the numerous complaints which resulted from the abuse of the sewerage system by residents, GWI was unable to respond to Mr Lall’s complaint within three working days, but was able to do so on the fourth working day when a team visited Mr Lall’s residence.
However, the customer reported that he had rectified the problem by engaging a private contractor and he was requesting compensation for the works done. This was rejected by GWI since the blockage which led to the overflow was most likely caused by misuse of the system.
Mr Lall contacted GWI’s Public Relations Officer again seeking compensation in a conversation which lasted in excess of 30 minutes. His claim was again rejected in accordance with the company’s policy.
Contrary to Mr Lall’s published statement, the PRO did not indicate to Mr Lall that GWI had a scarcity of resources. The company is fully equipped to respond to complaints regarding the Georgetown sanitation system. However, this is sometimes affected by the consistent dumping of garbage via sewerage chambers by residents as well as the lack of grease traps at some food preparation entities. This was clearly explained to Mr Lall by the PRO. At no time was the topic of the scarcity of resources broached by the PRO.
Following this, Mr Lall contacted the PRO on Wednesday, September 17 at approximately 18:45 hours indicating that he was once again dissatisfied with GWI’s service. The PRO indicated that he was about to attend a meeting. Attempts were made by the PRO to contact Mr Lall on the very day but to no avail. In excess of 10 calls were made the following Thursday, September 18 and Friday September 19 but Mr Lall did not return any calls to GWI’s Public Relations Department.
The company wishes to state that every effort was made to satisfy Mr Lall. His published remarks are surprising since during his conversation with the company’s PRO, Mr Lall stated that he was satisfied with the apology for the one day delay in responding to his complaint.
His remarks about GWI indicating that there was a lack of resources is erroneous since at no time did a GWI officer indicate this to Mr Lall. The company can only conclude that the writer has another agenda other than the one-day delay in responding to his request.
Yours faithfully,
Timothy Austin
Public Relations Office
GWI
