NWC Looking into Prepaid Water Tank Programme
By: , February 28, 2014The Key Point:
The Facts
- Householders would pay for a tank of water at the local bill payment agency and the National Water Commission (NWC) would then go and fill it.
- The pre-paid method will also be useful for remote areas that the NWC is unable to adequately supply.
The Full Story
The National Water Commission (NWC) is giving consideration to an innovative programme, which will see water tanks being provided to householders in drought-prone and difficult to reach communities, which will be filled on a pay-as-you-go or prepaid basis.
This was disclosed by Minister of State in the Ministry of Water, Land, Environment and Climate Change (WLECC), Hon. Ian Hayles.
“We’re looking at a range of (options) because we have to deal with the drought problem,” he said.
Explaining how the system would work, he said that the householder would pay for a tank of water at the local bill payment agency and the National Water Commission (NWC) would then go and fill it. The NWC will supply the tank, and the householder will pay the cost overtime.
Mr. Hayles said the pre-paid method will also be useful for remote areas that the NWC is unable to adequately supply. “If we can give you a tank and fill that tank whenever they need water, surely that would be a solution,” he noted.
He told JIS News that the idea behind the strategy is to facilitate a greater sense of individual responsibility in the use of domestic water.
“We’ve tried the collective approach but somebody has to pay for providing that water. What we’re looking at now is individual responsibility in terms of providing the tank and the water,” he stated.
The State Minister pointed out that because of the tight fiscal constraints, the government has to be doing a lot of reconfiguring while meeting the needs of is citizens. Using this approach would enable it to meet its obligation of bringing potable water to more Jamaicans islandwide.
“I have given the Rural Water Supply Limited the charge to go ahead and look at it. Rural Water and NWC say they will be working together as the National Irrigation Commission (NIC) has already begun to implement a similar strategy and it seems to be working,” he said.
He argued that if the method works with farmers, then there is no season that it cannot also be utilised for the householder.