ILOILO City – Metro Iloilo Water (MIWD) is supposed to take over Metro Iloilo Water District’s (MIWD) water distribution system this month. But this has been moved to next month.
“There are requirements nga wala pa namon ma-meet,” said MIWD officer-in-charge Amarylis Josephine Castro.
MIW is a joint venture between MIWD and Metro Pacific Water Investments Corp. (MetroPac). It would be handling the water meter reading, the computation and delivery of water bills and their collection.
Castro said the inventory of MIWD assets required by the Commission on Audit is not yet finished.
MIWD, hobbled with operational problems, entered into a joint venture agreement (JVA) with MetroPac in 2013.
The JVA called for the rehabilitation, replacement, upgrading, operation, maintenance, and expansion of MIWD’s existing water production and distribution network to improve the delivery of treated water within its service area, reduce the volume of non-revenue water (losses) from 50 percent to 35 percent, and upgrade the billing and collection system.
Aside from operating and maintaining the water system, MIW will also be entertaining applications for new service connections in the service area of the water district – this city and the nearby municipalities of Pavia, Leganes, Santa Barbara, Oton, San Miguel, Cabatuan, and Maasin in Iloilo province.
In line with the transfer of MIWD’s water distribution system, consumers are required to accomplish new water service contracts with MIW.
So far, Castro said, “70 to 75 percent” of MIWD active service connections have accomplished new water service contracts with MIW./PN
