As far as the Metro Cebu Water District is concerned, it has not been remiss in its mandate to provide ample water to its consumers, contrary to the statement of Mayor Tomas Osmeña who put the blame on MCWD for the lack of water in the city.
In a letter to The FREEMAN, Osmeña had said that MCWD failed in its mandate because it is only serving about 30 percent of the households in its franchise area.
Osmeña cited the statement of the National Economic and Development Authority, which said there are 350,000 households in the franchise area of MCWD and the figure does not include the number of commercial establishments the water district claims to have approximately 110,000 connections.
But MCWD said that it admits that it is not supplying 100 percent of the households in its franchise area, its record would reportedly show that it is supplying 45 to 50 percent of the daily demand for water of its area of coverage. This is reportedly the reason why it does not stop looking for ways and means to augment its water supply.
MCWD has reportedly been accepting private bulk water suppliers thus, it has three existing private bulk water suppliers, including Mactan Rock Industries, Inc. that has been supplying water to MCWD for almost 10 years; Foremost Water Systems, Inc. that has been supplying water to MCWD for four years; and Abejo Builders Corporation that has been supplying water for four years.
“MCWD has been serving water to its consumers for 33 years, with 117,333 registered concessionaires as of March 31, 2008. One registered consumer may mean one or more households sharing the same water service connection, or one subdivision with only one bulk meter shared by many residents, and one communal water faucet shared by 30 to 60 households,” MCWD said.
As regards the concern of consumers on MCWD’s alleged “bad service hours, low water pressure or no water service and general lack of water supply,” the water district said the concerns are primarily hatched because of insufficient water supply.
To address the problem, MCWD is reportedly looking for more sources of water in order to augment its present supply, which is an average of 165,000 cubic meters per day, as against the daily demand of water, which is 250,000 cubic meters per day.
The MCWD Board of Directors has reportedly directed the management to award within the year a total of 40,000 cubic meters per day water supply to private water suppliers at various injection points. This volume of water is reportedly on top of the several in-house water sources development projects which are in advanced development.
On the issue on very poor response time to reports of water leaks and repairs, MCWD said that compared to the past 10 years, it has reportedly “greatly improved” its response action. While it took the water district 20 hours to respond to reports of water leaks and repairs before, this timeframe has reportedly decreased to just seven hours at present.
MCWD has also reportedly installed six satellite offices particularly in Mactan, Casili, Consolacion; Talamban, Tisa, and Lagtang, Talisay. Its leak repair teams are reportedly operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Osmeña also said earlier that the lack of water supply in Cebu City has, time and time again, been the biggest item in the list of negatives for Cebu as an investment destination and a livable city.
“The truth is, there is no water problem in Cebu, there is only bad water district,” Osmeña said. — Joeberth M. Ocao/MEEV