We Are Failing Miserably To Provide Accurate Readings To Customers – Water & Sewerage boss
Director of the Water and Sewerage Department Pearline Scatliffe-Leonard has admitted that her department has been reading water meters inaccurately.
Scatliffe-Leonard who was a guest on the Honestly Speaking Radio Programme with Claude Skelton Cline on Thursday 10 December said the issue is being addressed.
“We have issues with our billing system, and that is an area that we are full speed ahead with correcting. What we are doing is we are replacing our kent mechanical meters, and these are meters that have long surpassed their lifespan. We are, for a lack of a better word, failing miserably in providing accurate readings to our customers and this is because those meters are 25 plus years old and we are replacing them with ultrasonic meters,” she remarked.
She added: “We have issues where persons tamper with the meters, so this particular meter helps us with that as well; because once we install them, we put a tag on them so if they are removed or tampered with in any way we get an alert.”
She also outlined a numerous other issues with the water and sewerage system.
“We have issues here with air, we have a lot of complaints with air passing through the meters, we have a lot of complaints that the meters are not accurate, we have issues with leaks on the customer’s side, and sometimes the customers doesn’t even know that they have a leak. So it would appear as if we are reading incorrectly and sometimes the readings are correct.”
The Water and Sewerage boss said, the process of replacing the meters started in July this year, and nearly $900,000 has been spent on the upgrade so far and between $1.5 to $2 million would be required to complete it.
“We are replacing those on Tortola first, we haven’t gone to the western end of the island yet, but we have from Sea Cows Bay up to East End including Greenland, Josiah’s Bay, Lamberts those areas so far,” she informed.
“We have issues with our billing system, and that is an area that we are full speed ahead with correcting. What we are doing is we are replacing our kent mechanical meters, and these are meters that have long surpassed their lifespan. We are, for a lack of a better word, failing miserably in providing accurate readings to our customers and this is because those meters are 25 plus years old and we are replacing them with ultrasonic meters,” she remarked.
She added: “We have issues where persons tamper with the meters, so this particular meter helps us with that as well; because once we install them, we put a tag on them so if they are removed or tampered with in any way we get an alert.”
She also outlined a numerous other issues with the water and sewerage system.
“We have issues here with air, we have a lot of complaints with air passing through the meters, we have a lot of complaints that the meters are not accurate, we have issues with leaks on the customer’s side, and sometimes the customers doesn’t even know that they have a leak. So it would appear as if we are reading incorrectly and sometimes the readings are correct.”
The Water and Sewerage boss said, the process of replacing the meters started in July this year, and nearly $900,000 has been spent on the upgrade so far and between $1.5 to $2 million would be required to complete it.
“We are replacing those on Tortola first, we haven’t gone to the western end of the island yet, but we have from Sea Cows Bay up to East End including Greenland, Josiah’s Bay, Lamberts those areas so far,” she informed.
