This Wednesday was filled with lots of positive news for members and guests of the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers’ Confederation October Luncheon held at the British Colonial Hilton.

Both Glen Laville, General Manager of the Water and Sewerage Corporation (WSC) along with Sandra Edgecombe, Deputy General Manager and Chief Financial Officer, were the featured guests at the luncheon, and gave updates on the corporation’s immense improvements in water loss reduction and customer service.

”Our goals are to simply provide The Bahamas with safe water. We looked at where we were failing and what these losses were costing us,” noted Laville. “We then focused on improving our efficiency, our customer services and then to start winning back our customer base.”

In 2011, the WSC was the recipient of an $81 million IDB loan, and they have been making steady improvements to their water services ever since.  The strides that WSC has made have been so impressive that the company was recently praised by the 2015 KPMG Infrastructure Summit for their non-revenue water reduction programme in conjunction with MIYA.

Although the company has been recognized for their improvements by other businesses in the utility sector, many Bahamians are unaware of the improvements that are being made daily in New Providence.  As a result, the Corporation used the opportunity at the luncheon to explain the work they have been doing and to launch their aggressive Win Back promotion, offering the first 200 new or returning customers 50% off their water service for the first year.

During the presentations Laville noted four key factors responsible for WSC’s financial position: increased cost of service, current tariffs lower than cost of service, decreasing capital expenditure (due to higher operating subsidies) and non-revenue water loss. “But under our new mandate we have now decreased our water losses by nearly 4 million gallons per day and can track a 16% increase in sales volume.”

Emphasizing their customer service improvements, Sandra Edgecombe highlighted the company’s move into social media avenues to connect better with their customers and integrated website features to ease the process of doing business with them.  She also emphasized the need for Bahamians to “ditch” the use of wells and return to city water that is tested, safe and now reliable.

“We were very pleased to have Water and Sewerage Corporation as our guests today,” stated Edison Sumner, BCCEC CEO. “We are seeing the fruitful success of their IDB loan and how it is being put to very good use. We thank them for choosing our venue to launch their campaign and are pleased to see the upgrades that are happening in New Providence, for our members and the public.”

To learn more about WSC efforts interested persons can read on-going updates on their website or like their facebook page to gain daily information and news. As of Thursday (22-October) the Corporation will launch their Win Back promotion offering the first 200 former and new customers a 50% reduction in their water bills for the first year.  “We encourage everyone to take advantage of this promotion that will run until the end of the year,” said Edgecombe. “As we make our services more reliable and business interactions more user friendly, we want everyone to use our safe, reliable water and to ditch the well!”