CWSA and VINLEC customers to receive up to 10 per cent off their monthly payments

Customers of the CWSA and VINLEC stand to receive as much as 10 per cent off their monthly payments if they pay their bills in full.

Both utility companies are also offering moratoriums beginning this month, promising that qualifying customers will not be disconnected for non payment.

Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves, who was speaking on NBC Radio’s Face to Face programme on Wednesday, said these measures have been put in place to bear some of the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Central Water and Sewerage Authority (CWSA) has reinstated its moratorium on disconnections for domestic customers for the period March 15 to June 30.

This moratorium does not extend to industrial or commercial customers.

“So that means there wouldn’t be any disconnections from your houses for water, but to encourage you to pay, if you have zero balances in this period when you go to pay your bill…if you don’t have any arrears, you’ll get 10 per cent off,” the prime minister explained.

He also noted that if a customer makes a payment of 50 per cent or more, that customer will receive a five per cent discount on the balance.

Gonsalves said the CWSA is taking a significant hit because of the pandemic but has coupled the discount with the moratorium to “encourage persons to pay so that they can keep a cash flow going”.

He added that although the moratorium on disconnections was initially for a three-month period last year, CWSA maintained it for the entire year and only persons who made one or no payments in 2020 were disconnected.

St Vincent and the Grenadines Electricity Services (VINLEC) is also offering a 10 per cent discount to all its consumers: residential, commercial and industrial, for the period beginning on March 1 to May 31.

The electricity company will also offer a moratorium on disconnections to all its customers during this period.

Gonsalves said he met with VINLEC’s CEO this week to confirm this offer and that it will be reviewed at the end of May.

“We’re trying to cushion the pain of this economic fallout from COVID, which is not of our making. COVID didn’t originate here. It came here and it really created severe economic dislocation and I have to try as much as possible to ease the burden as much as possible on individuals,” the prime minister said on radio on Wednesday.

Despite these concessions, Gonsalves made an appeal to the public to continue trying to pay whatever little they can to the utility companies during the period.

“Keep it ticking over because when the end of May comes and you have a big backlog, you would have to go in in any event to make arrangements as to how you are paying them off…” he said.