Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 29) — The Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System on Wednesday demanded Maynilad and Manila Water to explain reported spikes in utility bills issued to customers post-lockdown.
In a statement, the MWSS Regulatory Office said it issued show cause orders against the water firms after receiving more than 400 complaints involving utility bills, which supposedly reflected an unusual spike in consumption.
The issue is similar to complaints raised against power distributor Meralco for overstated charges after resorting to average billing. Meter reading was suspended from mid-March to May as Metro Manila was placed under strict stay-at-home rules.
Meter reading and regular billing activities only resumed in June, with MWSS requiring a grace period for payments.
However, the regulator said the two concessionaires were not compliant with various measures to prevent bill shock.
MWSS said the firms were unable to verify the consumption patterns of customers, check for irregularities and automatically withhold billing statements which have “observed significant deviation” and will need adjustments. They also failed to communicate effectively and urgently such information to their clients, it added.
“The concessionaires are expected to resolve these observed violations, and issue an official explanation within this week,” MWSS chief regulator Patrick Ty said in an advisory.
“The agency assures the public that sanctions will be imposed over violations of such policies that aim to protect public welfare,” he added.
Maynilad and Manila Water were again the subject of President Rodrigo Duterte’s rant during his fifth State of the Nation Address last Monday over their supposedly lopsided supply contracts which ran against public interest.
Ty said the MWSS will continue to address customer complaints and asked others to report billing complaints to the regulatory office for processing.
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In a statement, Manila Water said there was only a small number of their 1 million customers who reported issues with their bills, and that bulk of these have been resolved.
The east zone concessionaire said 7 percent or 73,588 of its clients sought clarifications on their billing statements from June 1 to July 27, and that 90 percent have been resolved through their customer feedback channels.
Of these, only 7,937 were referred for further discussions, which ended in 57 customers getting bill adjustments, it said. More than 6,000 reports were resolved as billed based on actual consumption, while 379 cases were due to underground pipe leaks, the concessionaire added.
“We are confident that we have followed each and every guideline issued by the MWSS-RO on average billing during lockdown and actual billing thereafter as well as installment payments and disconnection grace period,” the company said, noting that 0.03 percent of complaints will be endorsed for MWSS intervention due to “after-the-meter leaks.”
Manila Water is run by the Ayala Group and now counts ports magnate Enrique Razon as its strategic investor.
