A number of technological upgrades and internal changes have been taking place at the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) as it continues restructuring to comply with the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) rules.
General manager Keithroy Halliday provided this and other updates in a wide-ranging session with the media yesterday at the BWA’s Pine, St Michael, headquarters.
Halliday said the BWA officially came under the FTC on January 1 this year and this meant they would now be subject to the regulatory body’s standards, a process which started in 2015.
As a result they will have to meet some general and specific service standards and file progress reports on a monthly, quarterly, semi-annul or annual basis, as required.
Halliday said this meant the BWA had to step up its game and be more “responsible in terms of customer delivery and how we manage our operations” as they joined the other utility companies which are all privately owned.
There have been internal changes related to culture, staffing and technology and others which have been more visible to the public. These include the installation of the smart meters and billing changes, and plumbing crews will soon be using tablets to manage jobs and provide real-time information.
The general manager said it was not an easy process and they continued to experience challenges with the century old network, but that area was also undergoing major upgrades towards automation. Soon they will be able to generate analytics to determine pressure points and what he termed “non-revenue water” or where the precious resource is being lost.
Halliday said this process would take millions or billions of dollars and would be ongoing. (SAT)
