Mayor Alfredo Abelardo Benitez said he considering terminating the joint venture agreement of the Bacolod City Water District and PrimeWater for failure to address the worsening water needs of Bacolod City.
The mayor said he is prepared to undertake whatever it takes including legal action, the deadline for PrimeWater to address the problem is over.
“We will elevate this for proper legal action,” he said.
The mayor at a press conference on Monday, April 15, pointed out that Section 5.1.2 of the JVA states that, PrimeWater shall ensure that all consumers enjoy uninterrupted 24-hour water supply by the end of the second year on November 2022.
Obviously this provision has not been complied with, this should have been rectified and a penalty should have been imposed, Benitez said.
He also said Section 5.1.3 of the JVA provides that from Nov. 13, 2020 PrimeWater shall continue to ensure that the water supplied to customers complies with standards set by the Philippine National Standards for Drinking Water or with such prevailing standards on drinking water quality issued by the Department of Health or such other governmental agency of the Philippines that is tasked with issuing such standards.
Benitez noted that there are numerous complaints of dirty water being delivered consumers by Baciwa-PrimeWater that can be addressed through investment in the replacement of old water pipes.
PrimeWater has failed to meet its JVA commitment and help address the current worsening water needs of Bacolod residents, Benitez said.
The mayor, who pointed out that the JVA was reached before he was mayor of Bacolod, said Baciwa-PrimeWater informed him that it had an existing water supply of 70 MLD (millions of liters per day) short 20 MLD of the 90 MLD needed by the city.
And to make matters worse they are saying that the 70 MLD has dropped to 50 MLD because of the drought, he added.
SECURITY PLAN
Benitez said he has asked BACIWA for a water security plan.
They are saying that Bacolod only needs 90 MLD but on verification with water experts what the city currently needs is 125 MLD, which is a huge discrepancy, Benitez said.
Benitez said he wants to ensure that Bacolod City has buffer water supply.
The mayor has also asked BACIWA to furnish him with the violations of PrimeWater for possible renegotiation or termination of their JVA contract.
“Obviously after four years of concession agreement PrimeWater has no concrete investment to make water supply in Bacolod more efficient and to provide 24-hour uninterrupted water service,” he said.
He also pointed out that in the past few weeks while the city government has been working to supply water to barangays that are waterless he has not felt PrimeWater’s effort to help.
This was all undertaken by the city government together with the Amity and Chamber volunteer fire brigades, he said.
Benitez also pointed that while bulk water suppliers were asked to bring in additional water supply to Bacolod in the last water summit, as of Monday he has not seen a signed contract between them and PrimeWater.
In fact some of the bulk water suppliers made their own initiative to start laying down pipes even without contracts, which PrimeWater had promised him, Benitez said.
Benitez said he can sense that PrimeWater does not seem to care or is not serious about addressing the water needs of Bacolod.
“I am seriously doubting their concern, if that is their attitude they don’t care, “Benitez said.*