Dear Editor,
Some serious errors were made by the Guyana Water Inc. in the estimated readings on my water bill. The water meter was installed sometime in 2006, but according to a bill I received early this year, readings did not commence until July 1, 2007 with an estimated zero reading for that date. The reading for August 11, 2007 is stated as 473 m3, giving a consumption of 473 m3. This consumption is equivalent to 2,128 barrels of water used for 42 days, giving a fantastic consumption rate of 51 barrels of water a day or 11.3 m3 per day! One cubic metre of water is not a small amount as some might think. Just imagine a cube with sides of 39 inches. That’s 1,000 litres or 1 ton of water.
According to my estimation, my average weekly consumption of water is about 4.5 barrels (= 1 m3). So over a 6-week period I would have used 27 barrels (= 6 m3), not the 473 m3, stated on the bill. Fortunately, because I had made previous payments I did not have to pay any amount on that bill. In fact, there was some overpayment.
Another water bill, received on February 13, 2008, repeated the estimation error. The reading for August 11, 2007 is 473 m3 and that for January 1, 2008 is 2,123 m3 estimated, giving a consumption of 1,650 m3 for 144 days and a total charge of a whooping $100,485. Again the consumption rate is an absurd 11.4 m3 per day!
Apparently, the estimated consumption rate for the first bill was used to estimate the reading for the second bill. However, after GWI deducted the overpayment from the previous bill, I am now required to pay $81,546. For the same period my total GPL electricity bill was about $20,000. It therefore means that water costs five times more than electricity! An aberration indeed.
The GWI water supply is sporadic ranging from 6 – 8 hours daily at unpredictable hours on unpredictable days. Depending on the pressure, it would take about 15 – 30 or more minutes to fill one barrel (= 2 – 4 barrels per hour). I have only three barrels. So even in the best of circumstances, if I were to allow the water to flow unchecked it would be equivalent to 32 barrels or 7.1 m3 daily.
On February 14, 2008 at 10:50 a.m., I measured that the water flow took 20 seconds to fill a 1 litre bottle. Given that a barrel holds about 220 litres, it would take about 1
