ILOILO City – Expectations are high as Metro Iloilo Water (MIW) takes over the water distribution operation of Metro Iloilo Water District (MIWD) in this city and seven municipalities in Iloilo province – Oton, Maasin, Cabatuan, Santa Barbara, Pavia, Leganes, and San Miguel.
MIW is a joint venture between MIWD and Metro Pacific Water (MPW).
MPW president and MIW director Jose Maria Lim himself said the joint venture aims to ensure water availability in the service areas, improve the level of service efficiency and reduce the nonrevenue water from 50 percent to 35 percent within the 25-year concession period.
MIW also aims to increase its service coverage from 21 to 35 percent initially. Its long-term target is 80 percent.
MIW started serving some 40,000 customers in Iloilo City and the seven municipalities on July 1.
Lim acknowledged that major investments are needed so they would start by upgrading the existing facilities of MIWD then later building new infrastructure.
MIW commits to investing in new facilities such as more pipelines to serve more people in Metro Iloilo. Project cost over the 25-year concession is estimated at P12.35 billion.
In the next 18 months, MIW said consumers should expect improvements in water supply services as implements efficiency measures and customer experience solutions.
It would also establish a Geographical Information System (GIS), cluster hydraulic areas to establish District Metered Areas (DMA) thereby reducing non-revenue water, read and bill system to improve billing and collection, and partnership with payment centers to make settling bills easier for customers.
Under the joint venture, MPW effectively owns 80 percent of MIW while MIWD holds the remaining 20 percent.
MPW is the wholly-owned infrastructure investments subsidiary of Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC), the leading infrastructure conglomerate in the Philippines.
So far, about 60 percent of MIWD customers have already transferred to MIW and the transfers for the remaining customers is still ongoing.
MIWD will continue to monitor the performance of MIW, as per the Service Contract Agreement./PN
