Water pressure

WATER Minister Matthew Samuda and National Water Commission (NWC) officials are defending the utility’s proposed 51 per cent tariff increase, arguing that rising operating costs, ageing infrastructure, and repeated droughts have made higher revenue necessary to maintain and improve water supply. Speaking at a Jamaica Observer Press Club on Wednesday, Samuda acknowledged the public’s concerns about higher bills, but argued that the country can no longer postpone major repairs to its water system, while NWC Board Chairman Michael Shaw said the utility needs sufficient revenue to keep operating. “If we could have asked for one per cent and been okay we would have asked for one per cent. No politician on the planet Earth is interested in increasing the cost of living. This is a necessary step to resolve long-standing issues in our water sector,” Samuda said. He said Jamaica is “in a race against time” to replace ageing infrastructure and improve the reliability of water supplies, warning that the country’s long history of inadequate investment has left the utility facing mounting challenges. In the meantime, Shaw noted that the NWC needs to be able to meet the public’s expectations while maintaining its daily operations. “We need to continue the operations from one day to the next. Our citizenry is expecting that when they go home and turn on that tap, there’s water in it. There can’t be any worse feeling. So if you were to measure when you go home and you turn on [the switch] and there’s no light versus turn on and there’s no water, I think it’s a no-brainer, and as such, this tariff is going to right-size our position to ensure that we continue to deliver, as is our commitment to the citizens of Jamaica,” he said. Samuda said the proposed increase must be viewed against the economic and environmental challenges Jamaica has faced since the last interim tariff adjustment granted in 2019. He said the COVID-19 pandemic caused significant revenue losses when hotels and other commercial customers shut down, while disruptions to supply chains and rising prices subsequently increased the cost of operating the utility. He added that droughts in 2022, 2023 and 2025; along with Hurricane Beryl and Tropical Storm Rafael in 2024; alongside Hurricane Melissa last year, further affected the NWC’s operations and revenue. The minister argued that the utility continued to incur expenses even when drought reduced the amount of water available to sell. He also pointed to rising energy costs and changes to staff salaries, saying the NWC’s energy costs were now close to 50 per cent higher than in 2019, while salaries had doubled over the same period. “Nobody plans for three out of your five worst droughts ever during this period. Nobody plans for the worst El Nino in 200 years, which is what this is becoming, and… when we talk about these things people say, ‘El Nino? Whatever.’ But the last time we had an El Nino like this it triggered global famine. This is not a normal weather phenomenon that we are going through,” he added. Samuda argued that these pressures had been absorbed while the NWC’s tariffs remained unchanged, but said the utility could no longer defer essential repairs to its ageing infrastructure. He noted that the NWC had never replaced even one per cent of its asset base in a single year during Jamaica’s independent history — a shortfall he said had contributed to the deterioration of pipes and other infrastructure. He pointed to repeated breaks in a major pipeline at Coral Gardens in Montego Bay, which he said had broken six times in one month and required a $170-million intervention to safeguard the main supply line serving the city. “The reality is the capital replacement ratio of a utility is not intended to fall below one per cent of total capital replacement being done on an annual basis. In our independent life that has never happened…we’ve never replaced one per cent of the asset base of the water commission in a single year. We’ve never gotten close, and that is the utility standard globally. So what you have happening in the middle of that seven-year period is also the collapse of ageing infrastructure. I should be changing the third generation of those lines now, not the first generation in that way,” he said. Samuda said the combination of ageing infrastructure, climate-related pressures, and decades of inadequate investment have left Jamaica with urgent work to do. “Ultimately, it is our responsibility to do now what should have been done a long time ago. We will do it. And we can have confidence that at the back end of our work and our investment in these varying programmes, they will have the confidence; and I assure them in the coming years we’ll have other things to complain about other than potable water in the pipes,” he said. The proposed 51 per cent increase has not been approved by the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), which is to review the NWC’s application. Furthermore, Acting NWC President Kevin Kerr separately told the Jamaica Observer that the application includes a significantly lower proposed increase for the utility’s lowest consumers, but said the details could not yet be released because the OUR had not reviewed the application.