The power company has now given GWI notice that unless it is able to sustain a payment plan, GPL will be left with no alternative but to cut off its power supply.

In a press release yesterday, GPL also stated that the water company has been unable to guarantee any significant reduction of its arrears over this period. The power company has informed the government it is not in a position to offer extended credit to GWI.

GWI recently began reducing its pumping schedule countrywide in a bid to cut back on energy costs. It has also launched a massive disconnection campaign.

Assistant Public Relations Officer of GWI, Javin Singh told this newspaper yesterday that an assessment of the campaign was being done and very soon the public would know how much money and energy were being saved. He added that GWI’s engineers were now checking all their pump stations around the country and tallying the rate of energy consumption.

He added that since the company had intensified its disconnection campaign and begun reducing pumping hours, customers had started to pay their bills.

“Collections have improved significantly over the past few days,” Singh told this newspaper.

The five-year contract awarded to the UK-based Severn Trent Water International to manage the affairs of GWI is performance-based and one of the benchmarks set by the government is for the management to improve revenue collection by 80% during the five-year period. Failure to do this could result in the management being penalised. GWI had repeatedly complained about customers not paying up their bills and the company had even increased its tariffs last year. But despite this, revenue collection has been very slow, resulting in the company being unable to proceed with certain plans.

In the press release, GPL said it had been in protracted negotiations with GWI since the new management took office in May 2003 to have outstanding arrears settled.

These arrears have unfortunately increased progressively and the water company has been unable to offer any assurance of settlement or even a reduction in the rising amount.

GPL said it had inherited a debt of $1.5B when the new management assumed control of the power company, adding that if it was to sustain a regular and reliable supply of electricity to all of its customers, it must meet urgent fuel payments, operational, maintenance and rehabilitation costs and continue to clear outstanding liabilities.