THE Commission on Audit has recommended that the Angeles City Water District (ACWD) impose disconnection on delinquent customers after its uncollected billing ballooned to P75.78 million as of December 31, 2019.
However, implementing that might not be easy since the list of big non-paying customers includes the city government, 23 public primary and secondary schools and several other government agencies.
Government auditors warned that failure to collect these accounts has deprived the Angeles City WD of the opportunity to use the funds to upgrade its services and equipment and could result in a big revenue loss.
“(These accounts) were not disconnected and were allowed to continuously enjoy water supply despite non-payment of arrearage ranging from 61 days to over 10 years,” the COA noted.
Reacting to the audit findings and recommendations, the Angeles City WD Finance and Customer Accounts Services agreed to step up efforts to negotiate a settlement of the unpaid accounts with all the government offices concerned.
Likewise, the general manager assured the COA that his office will “require the strict and uniform implementation of the disconnection policy on” delinquent accounts to protect the ACWD.
Included in the list were “Angeles City Government” with P2,142,568.05 unpaid water bill, “Engineer’s Office/A.C. (Angeles City)” with P687,266.45, and “Hall of Justice — Angeles City” with P594,333.75.
Other big delinquent customers are Sto. Rosario Elementary School (P901,895.20), Dr. C. Dayrit Elementary School (P865,980), EPZA Elementary School (P398,400.40), and Lourdes Northwest Elementary School (P342,092.50).
The COA reminded the government water firm that it has the option to terminate the delivery of services to a customer under its standard water service contract. It said that duty should be exercised by the WD general manager.
“The non-enforcement of the terms and conditions provided in the water service contract, specifically the disconnection policy, resulted in the accumulation of receivables and increase in the number of delinquent concessionaires, thus potential losses may be incurred by the (water) district,” it pointed out.
