WSC launches customer contract

The Water Services Corporation launches first ever customer contract which provides clear information on the rights and obligations of both the corporation and customers.

24 January 2012, 12:00am
by Jurgen Balzan

2 min read

Finance Minister Tonio Fenech visited the Water Services Corporation in Luqa.

Finance Minister Tonio Fenech, this morning visited the Water Services Corporation head office in Luqa. Fenech was shown around the corporation's laboratories by CEO Mark Muscat.

After touring the laboratories and meeting some of the corporation's employees and managers, Fenech addressed a press conference together with the corporation's chairman Louis Giordimaina and CEO Mark Muscat.

This year marks the corporation's 20th anniversary and Muscat and Giordiamina highlighted the corporation's achievements during the past 20 years. They stressed that in 1992 the corporation started off with 1669 employees whilst it now employs 900 employees, yet improving the services provided. Muscat remarked that since 2004 the corporation also took over the former Drainage Department.

Muscat said the corporation provides water to 220,000 households and is currently worth €250 million in total assets. "During the last few years the corporation embarked on a project to increase its efficiency in the provision and distribution of potable water to households and industry. We have also invested in new and existing plants and decreased the corporation's carbon footprint."

He said one the corporation's first milestones was its successful efforts to decrease the wastage by initiating the Intensive Leakage Reduction Programme in 1995. "Wastage was reduced from 4,000 cubic metres per hour in 2000 to just 490 cubic metres per hour as of now."

Finance Minister Tonio Fenech emphasised the importance of water and compared Malta's efficient in producing and distributing water. "We are the envy of many countries and we receive numerous requests to provide our expertise in the field. Cyprus, imports its water when the resource is scarce is now emulating our model."

He boasted of the continuous investment of successive governments in the corporation and said the WESC is about to launch a new technical call centre and announced the launch of the customer contract. "The customer contract provides clear information on both the obligations as well as the rights of both the corporation and the customer. It also sets the terms under which the corporation will provide its services within 20 days."

Fenech also listed the corporation's future challenges and said the corporation intends to invest further in re-using wastewater, reducing its carbon footprint and improve the sustainability of its operations.

Jurgen Balzan was a MaltaToday reported from 2011 to 2017.

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Luke Camilleri •

MIN irrid jithaq b'min? BIKKEJTHU PAJJIZ!

•

The remarkable achievements are indeed astounding. Water is the most precious natural resource after air and should not be wasted. The initives we have seen effected since we first visited Malta in 1989 and seince more recently when we became a regular visitor after 2001 have been very remarkable. We are sure that without some valuable financial support from the EU these achievements may not have been so profound. Getting the total losses down even further by another 50% may take some doing but it is worth a try. We can think of some ideas such as ensuring that not tap in a hotel for example could be left on for more than 5 minutes and that can be managed with a fairly simple device. Whether the Water Services Corporation might be able to convince builders and renovation companies to fit a grey water collection system from hand-basins or baths and to plumb such devices so that this wasted water can be diverted to flush toilets - a solution we have seen work effectively elsewhere - may take time. Another simple modification would be to connect the outlet of a hand basin and direct the hydraulics to fill the cistern for the bext flush. The need would be to increase the standard height of the hand basin to ensure that the hydraulics works but then that isn't such a serious issue.